


The Wheel Unbroken

by TheAnimaniacDude



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Earn Your Happy Ending, Exploration of ASOIAF Setting And Lore, F/M, Insanity, Magic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rare Pairings, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2020-03-26 10:17:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 96,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19003756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAnimaniacDude/pseuds/TheAnimaniacDude
Summary: “This is magic, Jon.” Said Robb, fervently. “This is some sort of hellish magic, the work of the Other himself. Who else would benefit from turning back time and undoing a war that saved the lives of every man, woman and child in Westeros, except the demons who lost? Father and Ser Rodrik have taught me how to lead men, and fight men who live and bleed, but this? This dream of yours, that wasn’t a dream at all? It’s absolutely fucking mad.”Jon Snow had made a life for himself beyond The Wall, after he was banished for Queenslaying. A happy life. A life he had always wanted.And then, one day, he woke up in Winterfell, twenty years ago.What began as a dream turns into a nightmare as he discovers that something is not content with 'merely' the Long Night being averted, and no matter how many times he falls chasing an unknowable, impossible quest, it refuses to let him stay dead. Once, he followed a woman who dreamed of Breaking the Wheel. Now, the Wheel will Break him.





	1. Life One

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Purple Days](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/488533) by Baurus. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering, since a few people did not know: I occasionally link music in the story that I believe will enhance the reading experience for a certain portion. When you see a string of underlined words, that is a link to another site with pre-selected music; most of the time it's Youtube, sometimes it's not. I hope you enjoy.

When Jon opened his eyes and felt the gentle featherbed under his back, he was momentarily disoriented, confused. It was only after he rolled to the side and saw his cousin, Robb Stark, lying in the bed on the opposite side of the room that a slow, gentle grin spread across his face.

“One of those dreams, then.” He muttered, slowly pushing himself upright. The sunlight shining through the window in their shared bedroom was weak, and he noted with some far-away amusement that he had woken up fully dressed in his leathers. Just more proof that his sleeping mind could not be bothered to stay perfectly logical, he supposed.

This dream of Winterfell was more vivid than most, as he walked along the corridors of the family wing in silence. After twenty years north of the wall, he had forgotten many of the details of his childhood home; That the click of his boots on granite floors echoed long after he had finished walking, that the door to Arya’s chambers had nicks and scratches along the frame from any number of her childhood fooleries…

Even as he stepped out into the courtyard, old thoughts returned to him with the sound of soldiery in the distance. “How many years…” He whispered. He blinked, suddenly noticing the timbre of his voice; he was barely more than a boy. “My dreams grow queerer by the year.”

He laughed, then; the wildlings had helped him learn to laugh and smile again, in the freedom of beyond the Wall. No thoughts of bastardy or Iron Thrones, or beautiful mad Targaryens, had polluted his mind for at least two whole turns of Winter and Summer. He moved with purpose, strolling about the empty courtyards and enjoying the Summer dawn.

He found himself in the training courtyard, an old, beaten dummy still erect, and a blunted sword still on the racks. He picked it up, swinging it about experimentally. “Who shall I be defeating today, then?” He asked the dummy. “Perhaps you shall be Tormund, or another chief come to challenge King Crow.”

He lunged forward, then, attacking the dummy with a Wildling fury. The sword struck at the crown of the faux-enemy, the side, the the crook of neck and shoulder. He danced, darting back and forth with speed, and his mind’s eye imagined his foe before him.

On and on, he fought his imaginary enemy, until a loud clapping startled him. “By the gods, Snow!” Robb called, grinning widely. “Where was this energy when we last sparred? You might have thrashed me then, instead of the opposite!”

Jon could only laugh, throwing the sword to the side; sweat dripped from his hair, and the linen shirt underneath his leather was plastered to his back. He had been training longer than he thought. “Oh, cousin. You of all people should know that skill in battle cannot always save you.”

Robb blinked, rapidly. “... Cousin? Snow, what’s wrong with you? You’re not making sense.”

“Enough of that.” Jon walked forward, sweeping the phantasm of his dead cousin into his arms. “Let’s not ruin a dream so vivid as this with grim talk.” Jon pulled away, staring Robb in the eyes. “I am glad to see you again, after so many years. Your face had begun to fade, for me.”

Robb’s expression twisted from befuddlement to concern. “Are you ill? Should I call for Maester Luwin?”

“Ah! Maester Luwin!” Jon smiled; the sight only seemed to unnerve Robb even further. “I had not thought of him in such a long time; I would be glad to see his face, too. So many were lost during the sack that I could never pay respects to.”

“Jon, please.” Robb gripped Jon by the wrist and pulled his hand from his shoulder. “I don’t think you’re well at all. You’re talking absolute nonsense, and you’re not yourself.”

Jon looked at the fingers wrapped around his wrist. “You’ve quite the grip on you for a figment of my imagination.” he jerked his arm free. “I’m fine. I just wish I was this open with you all while I had the chance. For too long, I let my shame and fear of your mother cow me into resentment and brooding. Now I’ll never get the chance to tell you how much you meant to me.”

“Alright, that’s it.” Robb backed away. “I’m going to fetch the Maester, you’re not well. Stay right here.” Thrusting his hand out multiple times, as if he was a hound to be commanded, he backed away slowly around the edge of the courtyard and disappeared.

Jon snorted, full of good humor. “My memory of him must be growing foggy. I don’t remember him being quite so concerned for my well-being before. Twenty years dead, and everyone becomes gentle in your dreams.” he walked out of the courtyard, whistling a tuneless song, and watched with glad eyes as his boyhood home came to life with the sun.

“JON!” Robb shouted, from far away.

“Oh, damn him.” Jon muttered. “Even in my fantasies I can’t get away from people fussing.” he broke into a steady jog, darting between soldiers where possible and looking for a place to hide. His eyes lit on the gate to the godswood, and he ducked through.

The peace of the Old Gods was felt immediately by him, even though the Weirwood was not yet visible to him through the grove. Jon continued his pace of running from his shouting cousin, his voice growing softer and softer as he went deeper through the acres of forest, until at last he could hear him no more. Jon chuffed softly, shaking his head. “Unbelievable. I have to run from a figment of my imagination, a man dead to me for decades. I had thought the phrase ‘running from your past’ to not be quite so literal.”

His head lifted, and saw the Heart Tree itself standing before him. Jon fought the urge to kneel before it; the Free Folk had instilled a greater respect for the Old Gods than he had before he had been exiled, but this was just a dream. “I had thought I was beyond all of this.” He admitted, for he could not tell a lie before the Heart Tree. “This hasn’t been my home since even before Daenerys Targaryen came with fire and blood, and I had thought I had finally let go, after twenty years.”

“Maybe…” he rocked back and forth on his heels. “Maybe I simply ache. When I wake, I will be old, and Val will be there, heavy with our last miracle child, but Ghost…” He blinked away tears. “Ghost will no longer be there, from yesterday until the day I die. Only his pups remain of him, now.”

“JON…!”

Jon’s head snapped up at the distant call; an involuntary grimace spread on his features. “Father…?” he whispered. His grimace turned into a scowl.

_I will not allow my dream of better times to be broken by thoughts of Targaryens._

Jon turned on his heel, striding quickly towards the smaller wooden gate leading to the Hunter’s Gate. The keep was clearly going to be a problem, and he would not allow himself to be woken from this dream by recriminations on the lies of Honorable Eddard Stark.  

 

* * *

 

The sun was high in the sky by the time Jon reached the Wolfswood on foot. The air was crisp, an edge to it that told Jon it was nearing the end of Summer. The green of the land would fade, and become blanketed in snows dozens of feet deep; the idea made Jon think of his home beyond the Wall.

He bowed his head underneath a low-hanging branch and stepped through into the woods proper, and the sun became muted by the thick canopy. Jon slowly pulled a simple arrow from the quiver on his back, and fixed it against the string of the hunter’s bow he had taken from the Gate. he wasn’t sure if he had any purpose hunting game in a dream, but he had grown to enjoy the chore among the Free Folk, a productive way to clear his mind of troubles.

He padded through the forest underbrush with a practiced stealth, hunched over slightly and avoiding the more destructively loud twigs and growths. The forest was quiet; his memory wasn’t sure enough to say whether it was unnaturally so, but the namesake howling of wolves was absent from the soundscape, and he had not found any game even after an hour of the hunt.

Finally, his ears perked at the sound of shuffling through the brush. He renocked the arrow to the bow’s string, slowly pulled it back to his ear, and loosed it into the brush. A sharp squeal of pain told him he had found a rabbit. With a grin, Jon Snow pulled himself to uprightness and moved to collect his quarry.

“Snow! Snow!”

Jon stiffened at the unxpected voice. He turned to the sound; a raven was perched on a far-away tree branch, staring directly at the boy.

“Snow! Snow!” it cawed again.

Jon’s eyes narrowed. His hands reached for another arrow, never taking his gaze off the bird. “You think me enough of a fool that I can’t recognize a Warg when I see one?” he said to the bird.

The raven stilled, staring back at the human with black beady eyes, before taking off from the branch with a flap of wings. Even as it flew, Jon nocked the arrow to the string and traced it’s flight path with the metal head. He squinted, and loosed the arrow at the in-flight bird.

The moment after the arrow left the string, Jon heard a low snarl behind him. It was all the warning he received as he whirled about, the bird forgotten, and the wolf that had crept up on him leaped at his throat. His leather-clad arm went up in reflex, and the beast sunk his teeth deep into his wrist.

Jon let out a shriek of pain and toppled to the ground, free hand smashing weakly against the predator’s face. The animal’s eyes were white, and without pupils, as it wrenched his arm about. A sickening crunch of flesh and bone sounded out as Jon lost all feeling in his left hand beyond white-hot pain.

His free hand landed at the beast’s snout, and he jabbed it forward. With a squish of blood, the wolf’s eye was gouged out by his thumb. The Warg howled in pain and retreated for just a second, but it was enough to allow Jon to scramble backwards. His hand was shredded, ribbons of flesh dangling off his forearm like red banners, and blood poured freely into the ground. He could not feel anything past the wrist, and his fingers refused to curl at will.

His remaining hand lashed backwards to his quiver, as the Warg backed away, and then lunged once more. His hand wrapped around the stem of an arrow, and with a roar, Jon stabbed downward with the tip. The arrow plunged through the animal’s skull just as it’s teeth wrapped around his neck. The wolf went limp, but it’s force was not cancelled, and the corpse bowled Jon to the ground, plaque-coated teeth tearing furrows along his neck.

Jon lay there on the forest floor, for a time, heaving and panting in agony. _This is no dream_ . _I am awake. I am awake, and a boy again, and I nearly died._

_I might still die, if I do not staunch the bleeding._

Jon clumsily pushed the wolf-corpse off of his chest with a single hand, and nearly blacked out twice attempting to push himself to his feet. The arrows in his quiver, he noticed absently, were all shattered from the fall. He left the hunting bow where it had fallen, and began to walk, clutching his nearly-severed hand to his chest.

He had not taken more than a dozen steps before another crunch of underbrush alerted him. Jon whirled about, eyes wide in fear, to take in a majestic stag standing behind him, antlers curled and crowned with nearly twenty points.

Jon Snow had nearly relaxed, until he locked eyes with the stag. The animal’s pupils were pure white, without pupils.

“No… no!” Jon shouted, stumbling back. “Why!? I’ve done nothing to you!”

The Stag skinchanger merely snorted, and lowered its’ head. Jon didn’t wait another moment, but turned on his heels and burst into as fast of a run as he was capable.

It wasn’t enough. He heard the Stag burst into a gallop, through the blood pounding in his ears, a moment before his entire world exploded in pain.

He was aware, as if from a distance, that he heard the Stag’s neck snap from the force of goring him in the back with its antlers, even as it carried him down to the forest floor. He only felt the antler tip that had gone through his neck for the blood that fountained out across his cheek; everything below his neck was numb. He would have been screaming, if his lungs hadn’t been ruined in the Warg’s suicidal attack.

_Why… drove yourself mad… like Varamyr… what did I…_

Darkness.

 

* * *

 

When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed underneath his back, he was screaming.

“BY THE GODS!” somebody shouted from the opposite end of the room. Jon thrashed wildly, trapped within the fur blankets. A pair of arms gripped him by the shoulders. Jon answered the touch with a flailing punch at the offender. “AGH! Dammit, man!”

“The Warg!” Jon screamed. “The Warg!” he frantically pushed himself to his feet, stumbling like a drunk wearing only his smallclothes and trampling his pillow under his feet. Only after his shoulder slammed against the corner of the room, when he had no further place to retreat to, did the sleep clear from his eyes.

Robb was sitting precariously, knocked on his bum and clutching his jaw at the side of his bed. His eyes met Jon’s, angry and bemused in equal proportion. “Others take you, Snow, sometimes I forget how strong you are for being so thin.” He remarked, rubbing the bruising part of his jaw. “You hit like the Greatjon when the nightmares have you, it seems.”

“Robb…” Jon breathed. “No, no. this isn’t real. None of this is real. You’re dead.”

“Dead?” Robb’s hand dropped away. “I should hope not. I haven’t even begun my lordship.” the joking tone fell away as Jon continued to stare at him like a wight. “It’s alright, Snow. You had a nightmare. Your dreams of Wargs and Grumpkins and Snarks are just that - dreams.”

“No.” Jon shook his head, and slowly slipped down the wall. “No, that was real, Robb. I felt my blood pour out. It was real. It wasn’t - it wasn’t a dream. Val wasn’t a dream. My happiness wasn’t…”

Robb’s eyes grew wide as Jon began to shiver. “Jon, brother, please.” he pulled himself onto the bed and wrapped his arms around the Bastard’s shoulders, as Jon stifled his emotions as quickly as they came. “Tell me about it. Tell me what the nightmares showed you.”

“I… I was beyond the Wall, with the rest of the Free Folk, after I was banished for killing Daenerys.” Jon whispered, his eyes going far. “Val was pregnant with our third, after we thought she had grown too old. Ghost had just passed from infection, after he fought against a rival pack a week earlier, and we were celebrating to mourn his death. I went to sleep, and I woke up here, with you.”

Robb nodded gently, as if he understood anything that was coming out of his mouth. “Your third child, you said? With a ‘free folk’ woman, you said? Who are they? Was she the Warg you were shouting about?”

“No…” He shook his head. “No, Val wasn’t the warg. I woke up here, and I saw you, and that was when I thought this was a dream, because you had been dead for twenty years.”

“Twenty years?” Robb repeated, his tone full of indignation. “I died so young?”

“At the-” Jon shuddered, involuntarily. “The Red Wedding, when the Freys broke guest rights and slaughtered you and your army on orders of the Lannisters.” Robb’s eyes shot wide open. “I thought it was a dream, so I went to hunt in the Wolfswood. A wolf was there, and I could see by it’s eyes that it was a Warg. I killed the wolf, and then he - he had already changed bodies, and he finished me on the antlers of a stag.”

“Such deep lore, for a single nightmare.” Robb said. “I’m fine, Jon, and so are you. Wargs are a tale from Old Nan, and the ‘Red Wedding’ is a night terror.”

“But it’s NOT.” Jon clutched at Robb’s shoulders, grey eyes gleaming wide and sable. “It WASN’T. They paraded your body through the streets, Robb, with Grey Wind’s head sewn onto your neck. They called you the Young Wolf, so they mocked you in death. They desecrated your corpse, you were never laid to rest in the crypt, and I couldn’t…” he dropped his head onto the other boy’s shoulder, shuddering. “I could not betray the Watch… I couldn’t save you… I couldn’t save Father...”

Robb hesitated, just for a moment, before squeezing Jon tighter into his chest. “I’ve never once seen you so shaken, Jon.” he said, softly, as Jon’s breathing grew increasingly wet. “I won’t pretend to understand what it is that you saw, but I’m here.”

Jon’s head nuzzled against his cousin’s shoulder, before pulling upwards and away. His eyes were red with unshed tears. “I’m afraid of what happens if that’s not true.” he replied, softly, his words phlegmy. “If I’m dreaming still, and I will wake again, banished beyond the wall, and I have forgotten how to raise direwolf pups.”

“Direwolf pups!” Robb exclaimed, eyes wide. “I suppose that makes sense, given that they’ve never been seen below the wall, but - direwolves! This Ghost of yours was a direwolf!?”

Jon blinked, then shook his head slightly, in confusion. “Robb… have you forgotten Grey Wind?”

“Grey Wind? Who is that?”

 

* * *

 

Robb didn’t leave his side all that day. He asked questions of Jon, his natural skepticism giving way to a burning curiosity when Jon spoke of the wars that were fought. He was still a green boy, playing at glory vicariously, but Jon had little and less to give him of the War of Five Kings, other than what the ravens had told him. Instead, he told him of the battles he did know; first the Wall, and then the war against Ramsay Snow. Only now, as the sun was setting, did he turn to the Long Night.

“The Dothraki…” Robb breathed. “A hundred thousand Dothraki screamers, right here at Winterfell. What a terrible sight it must have been.”

“Ten-thousand, more like.” Jon scoffed, absently holding his horn of ale; it had barely been touched, and he had sipped at it only when his throat grew sore from talking. “The rest of the horde, and half the Unsullied, were taking their sweet time on the Kingsroad. They were loyal to their _khaleesi_ , Daenerys, but I still feared any number of them would break away to find softer targets than the amy of the dead when they realized they were vastly outnumbered.”

“But they didn’t.” Robb’s eyes glittered. “They followed this Targaryen queen across the Narrow Sea for the first time, and fought against the Others themselves. It sounds like something out of a song.” his teeth flashed in a fierce grin.

Jon snorted. “Followed her to their doom, perhaps. I’ve had years to look back on those days, and the strategy we had was horseshit. You could come up with a better defense in your sleep; I’m amazed any of us made it out alive.” He sighed, leaning back and staring broodily at the edge of the table. “They should have heeded their own legends. They call the sea ‘poison water’ because their horses cannot drink it. It, and all the things beyond it, must be a cursed thing in their minds.”

“But they followed her even still.”

Jon shrugged. “The _khaleesi_ who brought back dragons can unmake the things that are cursed, and lead to new pastures. _Me nem nesa._ ”

Robb blinked. “What was that?”

Jon gave a start. “Forgive me. It was a Dothraki saying. It means ‘it is known’. I picked up a smattering of phrases while I rode with them to Winterfell.”

Robb leaned back in his chair, eyes wide. “You know Dothraki?” he reached for his own horn off the table of the Great Hall, and took a long slug of ale. “Jon, for all of today I thought you were simply a masterful storyteller. But you know a language that nobody in the North has even heard, much less speaks. I…”

“You’re done humoring the madman, then?” Jon asked, wryly.

“Jon…” Robb’s hand rose to his forehead. “Jon, this is mad. You’re telling me all of this… ALL of what you told me, that was real?”

Jon waved his hand around the empty room. “As real as any of this is. I’m still not entirely convinced I’m not dreaming, even after dying with an antler in my throat.” Robb’s fingers threaded through his auburn Tully hair, pulling at his roots in sudden stress. “Why did you stay with me, if you thought I was a liar?”

“Because you’re my brother.” Robb replied forcefully. “Because one day you were brooding about taking the black and fathering no sons, and the next you wake up screaming about being killed by wargs and your pregnant wildling - tch - pregnant ‘Free Folk’ wife. You and I haven’t called each other by our first names in two years because you wanted to keep your ‘shame’ away from me, and now you wake up and call me Robb. I thought I could use whatever fell mood had taken hold to talk you out of the Night’s Watch and staying as my right-hand man, not…” he exhaled. “Not _this_.”

“Robb…” Jon said, gently.

“This is magic, Jon.” Said Robb, fervently. “This is some sort of hellish magic, the work of the Other himself. Who else would benefit from turning back time and undoing a war that saved the lives of every man, woman and child in Westeros, except the demons who lost? Father and Ser Rodrik have taught me how to lead men, and fight men who live and bleed, but this? This dream of yours, that wasn’t a dream at all? It’s absolutely fucking mad.”

Jon Snow’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t even considered… could the Night King really have undone time even after death?” His eyes narrowed. “But then, why am I here? He must have known I would work to undo everything he tries, because we beat him once.”

“You’re asking me to understand the inner workings of magic. I don’t know.” Robb responded. “But you’re here. And you… you already died once, and got back up. Do you think it will keep happening?”

“That I’ll wake up in Winterfell every time I die, so young that we haven’t even found our Direwolf pups yet?” Jon asked. “I don’t know. And I’m not keen on throwing myself off the top of the broken tower to find out.”

“No, no, of course not. Please don’t.” Robb shook his head rapidly. “But… augh. You know so much more about the situation than I do, but you’re a bastard.” Jon’s eyes darkened, and Robb quickly waved his hands. “Please, Jon, I mean that in all seriousness. If a Snow walked up to the archmaester with a Valyrian Steel rod and mask, and tried to ask him how time travel works, you would get laughed out of the room. Hells, you wouldn’t even be able to get IN the room in the first place.”

“What are you suggesting, then?” Asked Jon, leaning back. “You’re already talking about finding an archmaester in the citadel. You have something in mind.”

“I… Well… shit.” Robb suddenly looked nervous. “I thought… well, I’m the heir to the North. My name will open almost as many doors as our Lord Father’s would. And maybe, it’s possible you won’t have all day to convince me that you’re not in a fever dream, and we will work faster. Just in case it doesn’t work out, this time.”

Jon’s eyes widened. “You’re talking of secrets. Secrets that only you could possibly know, so that when I repeat them to you, you know it’s magic.”

“Exactly.”

Jon suddenly grinned, and bit his knuckle quickly to hide it. “You know which secret you are going to give, and it’s embarrassing.”

“Mortifying.” Robb’s head landed in his open palms. “I might jump off the broken tower myself when you repeat this to me, now that I think of it.”

“Any others you’re willing to share?”

“No, this has to be the one…” Robb sucked in a deep breath, and exhaled. “My first sexual experience was… was oral sex from Elen Woods.”

Jon exhaled sharply, before throwing his head back in laughter. “Elen Woods!? Noseless Ned’s daughter, from the Wolfswood? You got fellated by the girl with the cleft lip?”

Robb could only stare in shock. “... By the gods green and wise, you really are twenty years removed from here.” he said, finally. “I don’t think I’ve seen you laugh like that since the moment you learned what being a bastard meant.” he leaned back. “There. That’s the secret. Not even Theon knows this; he thinks that the time he dragged me along to the brothel in Winter Town after my nameday party was my first. It was horrible, and awkward for the both of us, and we never spoke of it again. If you tell me that secret, I’ll know you’re from the future, because there’s no way Elen told anybody about it.”

“Thank you for that _illuminating_ knowledge.” Jon drawled, his northern accent thick with mirth. “Nothing like knowing where your brother’s cock has been to put things in perspective.” his smile died, though, and he took his first long draw from his horn of ale. “You think they’ll aid me if I come with a letter from the heir of House Stark?”

“I doubt that.” Robb shook his head. “The letter would be too incredible to believe. Which is why I’m coming with you.”

 

* * *

 

When Jon saw who was riding with Robb towards the hill they had declared their rendezvous point, a small frown made its’ way onto his face. “Why is Theon coming with us?” He asked.

“Lady Catelyn requested that I bring him along if we were to ride very far.” Robb replied. “I never specified to her just HOW far we were riding.”

“What’s this I hear about you and prophecy, Snow?” Theon Greyjoy called out, a mocking smirk on his face. “Have you become the Warg King come again overnight?”

Jon merely continued to stare intently at the Greyjoy. There was none of the broken, haunted man he had last seen at the Battle for the Dawn. The visions overlapped in his eyes, the haft of a phantom spear jutting from the side of the man on horseback who had not yet had his perpetual smile ripped from his lips. This was not the man who died defending Bran the Broken; this was the man who could roast a child and call it Brandon Stark to the world for the glory of himself and his Ironborn father.

Robb pulled the reins until his courser came to a prancing halt. “Jon, what’s wrong?”

“You told him?”

“I did.” Robb nodded. “He would find out eventually, riding with us, and he’s as much one of us as you are. I told him in front of the Heart Tree, so he at least knew I believed what I said to be true.”

Jon couldn’t help but snort. “One of us. Perhaps.”

Robb continued staring. “... What did he do?”

“What?” Theon said, staring back and forth between the two. “Don’t tell me you believe this, Robb. I can buy that Snow had an eerie dream, but to put stock in it against me-”

“What did Theon do, Jon?”

“... He forgot who his real father was. And the North bled for it.” he said, finally. Silence greeted his words. Theon’s smile slipped. “Those of us who were left forgave what he did to our home and family, eventually. But you never did, Theon. You didn’t forgive yourself until you paid for your sins with iron.”

“You’ve got a fucking pair on you, Snow,” Theon growled, “to say something like that to my face.”

“Am I wrong?” Jon retorted. His voice changed, taking on a timbre more like the greenland ironborn. “I always wanted to do the right thing. Be the right kind of person. But I never knew what that meant. It always seemed like there was an impossible choice I had to make: Stark or Greyjoy.” He locked eyes with Theon, who had gone pale. “Those were the words you said to me on Dragonstone, when you begged my forgiveness, before you went to rescue Asha from Euron Greyjoy.”

“Nuncle Euron…!?” The horse underneath Theon rocked back and forth at his startlement. “How do you know that name?”

“I only met your Nuncle once.” Jon replied. “But he, more than any other man, caused the Mother of Dragons, the woman I loved, to go mad and burn down King’s Landing.”

“MOTHER OF-”

“BURN DOWN-”

“You will have to forgive me, Theon Greyjoy.” Jon continued, over their unified shouts. “For if I make it that far into this life, I will not hesitate to stab your nuncle at the first opportunity.”

Theon’s attention was split between Jon and the horse underneath him, who continued to grow restless in place, but even still his expression was drawn tight. “Euron was an eerie, fearful man even before I came to Winterfell, and that was before my father banished him. Did… did he have anything to do with - damn this horse, hold still! - with whatever it is that I did?”

“No. you did that all by yourself.”

“But it’s over.” Robb said forcefully, riding a few steps between them. “You just said you forgave him, and this man before you - this one, and no other, has done our family no wrong. Surely you can save a man from himself if you know which mistakes he is liable to make?”

Jon, after a moment, nodded. “Aye. I have, and I can.”

“Then do so.” said Robb. “For if you cannot save Theon from his folly, then how can you save the Young Wolf from his?” he turned to Theon, who was now totally focused on his courser prancing wildly beneath him. “Others take you, Theon, it’s like you’ve never ridden in your life!”

“I don’t understand!” Theon called, pulling harder and harder at the reins. “She was perfectly calm when we left!”

Jon pulled his own steed forward, reaching towards the animal’s neck to help him, when he looked at the animal’s gaze.

Theon’s courser stared back at Jon with milky white eyes, and snorted once as if to taunt him.

“THEON!” Jon shouted. “IT’S THE WARG!”

Before the Greyjoy could even process his words, his courser had already reared high, whinnying loudly as he was thrown off his saddle. He landed hard on his back, his bow snapping under his weight, and tried to stumble to his feet. The Warg had already landed on both feet, and kicked backwards at the squid prince. The hoof took him in the neck, and Theon was sent flying, limp as a ragdoll.

“THEON!” Robb roared, drawing his longsword. In a single thrust, he buried the blade in the eye of the possessed horse; he left the blade in the falling cadaver as he scrambled off of his own mount, stumbling to the Greyjoy’s side.

“Robb, no! He’s still here!” Jon shouted, whipping his head about. “This is just like the first time! Help me find him!”

“Theon! Theon!” Robb cried, clutching at the collar of the man; Theon’s head was twisted at an unnatural angle, and half of his cheek was torn off, exposing his bloody fractured teeth.

“Robb, there’s no time!” Jon shouted again, whirling around on his horse. “The warg will-”

The courser underneath him reared, and jon was airborne before he could finish his warning. He collided with the ground and could feel his shoulder pop from it’s socket, as he rolled down the hill uncontrollably. He heard a long scream from his cousin, over the wind in his ears and the blood in his brain, before he came to a sudden stop as a jutting rock collided with his stomach.

Jon groaned, his head spinning wildly and blood leaking from his lips; his tongue bled freely from how he had bitten it in the tumbling. He pushed himself to the pads of his feet, but immediately fell, this time onto his back. The blue skies of the North swam in front of his gaze.

“Snow! Snow!”

Jon Snow lifted his head with a heavy effort; the two remaining horses were slowly cantering down the hill, in perfect synchronicity, one of which had blood splattered up to the fetlocks of its forelegs. A raven was perched on the head of the other horse, cawing out the same word he had heard before.

All three animals stared at him, before their eyes flashed milky white in unison. The blood drained out of Jon’s face; the same Warg was controlling all three of them at once.

_Not even Varamyr was powerful enough to do that. The only one I know of is-_

“Snow! Snow!” the raven called, it’s eyes returned to beady black. Perhaps it was merely a trick of the light, but Jon swore he saw a indent in the bird’s forehead, in the shape of a closed third eye. The two horses charged forward, And Jon screamed in pain as he was trampled underneath. He could hear the bird’s call, until a metal-clad hoof stomped down into his neck.

Darkness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m rather surprised that I got so heated over the ending of the TV show that I went and dreamed up this story. It started as the life of Jon beyond the wall with the wildlings, and then one day my fingers had a mind of their own and turned it into something completely different.
> 
> The idea of this is rooted in the ending of the show, and for that to be true, certain plot contrivances must be unhappily respected. But on the other hand, Fuck D&D, and fuck the horse they kind of forgot they rode in on. I’m going to be mix-and-matching elements from the books, bashing them together until it comes out as something coherent.
> 
> Credit must be given to the wonderful Purple Days, for doing this first and (probably) doing it better. I mentioned that I was writing something to this effect early on, and a friend mentioned ‘oh, isn’t that like Purple Days?’ I had never heard of it, and so I binged it, and now feel wholly inadequate in comparison. Nevertheless, I will strive to make sure this is unique, take it in a different direction, and break new ground that Good King Joff never set foot on. Go and check it out on Space Battles if you like what I’m doing.
> 
> Stick with me, folks. This is gonna be fun.


	2. Life Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon seeks a greater understanding of his curse.

When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed underneath his back, he was gasping for air, clutching at his throat. His eyes saw nothing but the phantom image of a metal hoof blocking the sun, and his fingers traced at a bloody indentation that was no longer there.

_The Warg is the Three-Eyed Raven. The Three-Eyed Raven is trying to kill me._

He knew only a little of the being that Bran had claimed tutored him in his magic, beyond the wall. He knew he had visited him in his ‘green dreams’, in the form of a raven with a third eye on it’s brow. The Free Folk claimed that before Bran assumed his title, they thought him a myth, a servant of the Old Gods and the Children of the Forest, bound to the Weirwood in exchange for eternal life. And Jon knew, from what Bran had told him, that he was a Greenseer, one of the most powerful; he was to Wargs what Wargs were to men.

And now this legend from beyond the Wall was trying to kill him. He HAD killed him, twice over.

“He knows…” Jon whispered, eyes wide with horror. “He knows I’ve come back.”

It was the only possible explanation. The Greenseer somehow knew that Jon was from the future, and wanted him dead for it. But how? Jon hadn’t the slightest idea of the magic that brought him back… much less how such a thing might be detected by others.

Jon’s eyes drifted over to Robb, who was still asleep in his bed. The Robb who, if he was grasping the nature of his new curse correctly, wouldn’t remember a thing of their discussions, and how they had reconnected as brothers. It wouldn’t be long before the heir to Winterfell was moved to his own separate room, instead of the shared rooms that all the siblings had. Jon had learned during his talks with Robb that it was nearing the end of the year 297 AC, which Jon vaguely remembered was the last year he and the heir had shared a room.

Jon slowly pushed himself to a sitting position on his bed; his fists were clenched hard enough to whiten the knuckles. He was not a fool. He knew that the only reason he was trapped in this curse, ripped away from his family, was because of his blood. The blood of a Targaryen. The only Targaryen left, besides the children he sired with Val.

His vision grew cloudy. Lyan, his firstborn daughter, one-and-ten, and Ragnald, his son, only six years old. They both had their mother’s hair, yellow like spun gold, and grey eyes, so light they sometimes appeared clear in the correct amount of sun. They were gone. They had never even existed. And the third, the one that they were so proud of. He would never see their face, never learn if he had a new son or daughter. Val didn’t even know him-

An involuntary shudder passed through him down to his bones. Jon shriveled up, his knees pulling to his chest and slowly fell back into the bed, trying his best not to wake Robb with his sobbing.

 

* * *

 

It had been a day since Jon had awoken, and the Three-Eyed Raven had not yet killed him.

Jon had taken to walking around the grounds of Winterfell with a castle-forged sword on his hip. Ser Rodrik had protested heavily at the idea, as though he were simply a boy play-acting at being a grown soldier, but Jon was not dissuaded. He looked askance at every animal in sight, waiting for an errant twitch that showed they had been taken over by his foe from hundreds of miles away. It took all of his willpower to not carry a bow with him as well to shoot down every raven that flew in and out of the keep. Lady Catelyn would have had him flogged for that, no matter how much Lord Stark protested.

He hadn’t spoken to Robb in that time. Jon knew now that the Greenseer was not afraid of collateral damage to get at him; there was little and less point to getting others involved until he had discovered a workable solution to the problem. At the moment, the only idea he had was riding North of the Wall and setting fire to the entire Haunted Forest until he found the right tree. He didn’t think he would, but it was good to imagine it even still.

For a few moments, he had been in the company of the man who he had called Father, Eddard Stark. A rush of thoughts and complicated emotions passed through him, as he watched the man mediate a dispute between two Winter Town merchants in the Great Hall. one moment, he wanted to rush forward and hug him tightly; the next, to scream and curse at him for lying to him from the moment he was born. Both impulses passed as quickly as they came.

He briefly considered his knowledge against him; if Robb’s secret was enough to convince him he was from the future and to aid him, how much more would Ned Stark’s secret gain him?

He held the thought, considered it, and discarded it. Though his body was not even five-and-ten yet, he was no longer an insecure boy, pining after his missing mother. To bring Lyanna Stark’s name back from the grave would cause more trouble than it was worth. Robert Baratheon was still alive, after all, and nothing would rouse the Demon of the Trident from his self-induced torpor like knowing there was a son of Rhaegar still alive. His hatred of Targaryens was legendary.

In the end, he avoided him. He had held him dear, once, aspired to his image. But that memory was dead for many winters, from his perspective. He could stand a few more days before resurrecting it.

Mostly, Jon simply wandered, and watched. He needed to remind himself of Southron courtesies, and the way that he was supposed to act. He had snorted in laughter, when he first had the thought. Tormund and Val had properly corrupted his mind, if he thought of a place like Winterfell as _South_.

Eventually, though, he tired of exploration. Though it was clear that the Jon Snow of ‘yesterday’ had cleaned himself, he himself did not remember taking a bath in nearly four days. Dying again and again had prevented a stench, ironically enough, but he longed for the ritual of one all the same.

As he made his way through the family wing and into their private bathhouse, he saw the men’s half already closed off. He quietly rapped at the door, and from the inside, Robb called out. “I’m already submerged!”

Jon smiled, and stepped in. the bath was centered in the room, with seats inside the pool for two persons. The bath burbled and flowed with the pipes connected to the hot springs; the circular construction meant that filth was quickly swept down the drains, keeping the water hot and clear.

Robb was leaning against the corner of the bath, his arms across the grey stones of the floor. “Snow!” he called out. “What’s this I hear about you walking around with live steel all day? You afraid an assassin’s come for the Bastard of Winterfell?”

It was as he suspected. Robb was calling him Snow again; He didn’t remember a thing. Jon suppressed the sudden feeling of resentment. it wasn’t Robb’s fault. “Mayhaps they’ll mistake me for yourself!” He called, smirking, as he stepped behind the half-wall and began undressing himself. He pulled himself out of his leathers and placed them inside the carved stone cubby. “Seeing as how I look more a Stark than the heir himself does.”

“Ho-ho! Fair play, Snow!” Robb laughed, splashing as he scrubbed without motive at his limbs. “Maybe I should keep you at my side, then, instead of letting you run off to the Wall. You can draw all the footpads that have never seen my face, sit on the throne looking all dour and lordly, and Theon and I can properly enjoy ourselves in Winter Town.”

“I think if I even looked sideways at the throne without Father sitting in it, your lady mother would run to the Boltons with questions on how to properly skin a man.” Jon replied back, tugging off his woolen shirt.

Robb laughed again. “You’ve grown back your sense of humor overnight! I’ve missed this back-and-forth. The two of us have grown apart- BY THE GODS! WHAT HAPPENED!?”

“What?” Jon jerked his head up. Robb was halfway out of the bath, water dripping from his naked body as he scrambled forward. His Tully blue eyes were locked on Jon’s chest, and his hand was outstretched towards the black-haired boy.

“Jon! Those _scars_!”

“What scars?” Jon looked down at his chest, the chest of his four-and-ten body-

And at the faded, puckered skin of half a dozen stab wounds, one of which was directly over his heart.

The world narrowed to a point. His breath froze in his lungs, and then came back, faster and faster until his stomach was pumping like forge bellows. _It’s not possible._

“JON!”

Jon sank to the ground, falling flat on his bum as his hands traced along the old scars - familiar scars - scars that he _shouldn’t have yet_. “Impossible…!”

“Jon, are you alright?” Robb was standing over him, buck naked. “Is this why you were carrying the sword around? Who did this to you!?”

Jon looked up, immediately squinched his eyes together and turned his head away. “... Put some pants on first.” He said, groaning. “I’m not some Winter Town whore to shove your cock into my face.”

Robb blinked, looked down, and realized just how close his naked hips were shoved to Jon’s head. His flushed deeply, starting from his neck and working upwards to his cheeks. “Shit!” he scrambled backwards. His foot slammed into a patch of spilled water, and with a squawk of surprise, the heir to the Stark name flew ass-over-face into the scalding hot water. “AUGHGH! Bblhlhlhlhbh…”

Jon burst out laughing, clutching at his belly as his shortness of breath transformed from panic into uncontrolled mirth. Robb exploded from underneath the surface, his auburn hair plastered to his head, as Jon fell to his side, gasping for air as he kept laughing.

“Stop it!”

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Robb pulled himself to the edge of the pool and lifted himself halfway out by his powerful arms; he mercifully kept his lower half submerged and hidden behind the stone edges. “Others take you, Jon Snow! You had me thinking you were half-dead!” he squinted, staring at his half-brother. “By the gods Old and New, Jon, you _should_ be dead by those scars.”

Jon let the last whispery giggle escape him before he pushed himself upright; his face ached with laughter that his younger body was not used to. “I’m fine… no, that is a lie, I’m not fine, but I’m not dying…” Jon cocked his head. “Come to think on it, that’s a lie too. But that’s a long story.”

“Either speak sense or throw me a towel so I can get out. I’m starting to prune.”

Jon traced a finger along the edge of the scar over his heart; Olly’s face swam in his mind’s eye, fuzzy and indistinct. He had been wondering for days what the cause of his resurrection was, but all he needed was to strip naked, to see the signature of his benefactor written across his torso.

_The Red God…_

Jon absently plucked a folded woolen towel from the half-wall and lobbed it to his supposed half-brother. He snatched it with one hand and forced himself out of the pool in a single motion. “I’ve told this story to you before, but I want to know something first. Do you believe in magic?”

“Oh, no.” Robb groaned. “You’ve gone snow-mad. Is that what this is? Snow-mad, in the middle of summer. Of course you would.”

“At least I’m not cock-mad, like Elen Woods.”

SPLASH! Robb Stark had slipped off the edge of the bath, and taken his clean dry towel with him.

 

* * *

 

“So… let me square this story, Robb Stark.” Theon said, tone flat, as the horse bounced underneath him at a fast trot. The moon was high in the sky, and they had been riding as fast as three men on horses could reasonably go without killing their mounts from exhaustion. With luck, they would make the trip down the Kingsroad to a port city within two weeks, and sail to Dragonstone from there.

“You, Robb Stark, roused me from my slumber in my comfortable featherbed. You, Robb Stark, made me mount up and ride with you and your bastard brother without telling a single soul in Winterfell where we’re going.” Theon continued. “It’s only after Winterfell is out of sight that you, Robb Stark, _deign_ to tell me that your bastard brother thinks he’s from the future, because you, Robb Stark, saw him naked and he has ugly scars. He _then_ tells you, Robb Stark, that this is the work of a foreign god, and you need to ride to Dragonstone - to _Dragonstone_ \- to find a priestess that he imagines is _also_ magic, and brought him _back to life_ in ‘the future’ and gave him said ugly scars.”

“And you, Robb Stark, believed him, and this story…” Theon finished, his voice taking on a disgusted note, “Because he knew about a time you got sucked off badly by a minor lord’s daughter.”

Robb looked back, his expression twisted between looking apologetic and trying to not laugh. “Well, when you, Theon Greyjoy, put it like that, it makes me, Robb Stark, sound like a lunatic.”

“That’s because you, Robb Stark, ARE A LUNATIC.”

“While I, Jon Snow, am merely enjoying the fact that we are all speaking in the third person now.” Jon drawled, his lips curling in a suppressed smirk.

Robb laughed, a deep rolling laugh, while Theon scowled deeper at Jon. “And why did I have to come with? Leave me out of your skullduggery, and let me return to bed.”

“Because three men on the Kingsroad is less of an appealing target than two men on the Kingsroad.” Jon replied. “You’re also a deft hand with a bow, and we might need that.” His smile dropped. “I’m serious. I need you to listen to me very carefully. If you hear a wild raven begin to call my bastard name, you dismount, kill your horse, and shoot any living creature that approaches. Both of you. Understood?”

“Kill our horses?” Robb repeated, dumbfounded. “And leave us all stranded? Are  you mad?”

“Better than getting killed by them.” Jon shook his head. “I’ve finally discovered the reason for my past two deaths. He is a Greenseer, called the Three-Eyed Raven. I first died impaled on the antlers of a stag he had skinchanged into, and then I was trampled underneath our horses, after Theon had been thrown and kicked in the head.”

Theon dropped the reins of his courser, as if it was a live snake.

“You can tell he’s in control of a beast when their eyes turn pure white, but only for a moment. Do not hesitate to warn us if you see it.” Jon finished, gently pulling up on the reins as the Greyjoy fell back in speed. “Let’s make camp here for the night. We’ve made good time.”

“Is that why you were walking around with a castle sword?” Robb asked, as he dismounted, and led the animal off the side of the Kingsroad. “You thought this ‘Three-Eyed Raven’ was about to take control of any of the castle animals and kill you again?”

“Aye.”

“Madness.” Theon declared it, though his eyes still kept a watchful bead on the three horses, and he undid the band on his leg that kept his hunting knife tight in the sheath.

“Is it, Theon?” Robb said, pulling the supply packs from his horse. His hands quickly went to where his own bedroll was stored. “Can you truly say that this is the same Jon Snow that you’ve known for all your time in Winterfell? When was the last time you heard him laugh and make jokes before today?”

Theon’s mouth pressed into a line, before bouncing his head back and forth slightly. “... Your last nameday, probably.” he said, finally. “When he was forced off the lord’s table and got deep in his cups with the soldiers. After that, he went back to his regular broodiness.”

“That settles it, then. We keep the horses bound further from us as we sleep. And we keep a close eye out for any grumpkins and snarks, as well as any other myths that declare themselves real today.”

Jon nodded, and undid the saddle from his horse. Theon frowned even deeper at him as the bastard lifted the entire saddle and attachments over his head. “Are you seeing this, Robb?” He complained, gesturing at Jon.

“What?” Jon replied, looking at the both of them confusedly.

Robb rolled his eyes. “You’re freakishly strong, Jon, and it’s a wonder nobody has ever commented on it. All of that gear is, what, over a hundred pounds? And you’ve lifted it over your head without even breathing hard.”

Jon shook his head, throwing it down on the ground and fishing out his bedroll, as Theon filled his hand with a portion of travel rations. “That’s not so much. You’re as strong as I am.”

“Yes, but my arms are almost twice as thick as yours, and I’ve worked at my strength.”  the heir called, loosely tying the reins of his mount to a low-hanging branch. “I know you hold back on me when we spar with Ser Rodrik. You make sure that you win only half the matches at most for fear of my lady mother.”

“Did I do that?” Jon glanced down at his fist. “I honestly cannot recall. I thought I only gained my strength when I lived north of the Wall, after my exile.” His eyes narrowed in thought. “There was a raider among the Free Folk, called The Weeper. He and his band had managed to survive beyond the wall, and when I returned with Tormund and the rest, he didn’t take kindly to them listening to the words of the former lord commander.”

“You were the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch?” Theon asked. His tone was still suspicious, but there was a curiosity, now. “But the wildlings listened to you.”

“We made strange bedfellows in those days. I thought we were on the brink of extinction, and needed all the living to rally together. If I had known that the army of the dead would be such a pushover, perhaps I would have acted differently.”

“Wait, what? Hang on.” Robb’s head whipped around. “Go back a second. Brink of extinction? Army of the dead? You never mentioned anything about this.”

“But I- oh.” Jon scowled, frustrated. “You’re right. I’ve told you once, but then I was trampled, and you forgot. Alright. The White Walkers are real, they are marching on the Wall in a few years, and it’s not anything to be concerned about. All you need to do is kill the Night King with Valyrian Steel, and they all drop like puppets with their strings cut. It’s not necessarily easy, but any sufficiently stealthy assassin could do it. I know it works, because that’s how Arya killed him before.”

“ _ARYA?_ ”

Theon threw up his hands. “And now I’m back to believing you a lunatic. The Others are real, they’re marching on the realm of the living… and they were all defeated by a nine-year-old girl.”

Jon shrugged. “Apparently she trained as a Faceless Man in Braavos?”

“WHY IN THE SEVEN HELLS WAS NINE YEAR OLD ARYA IN BRAAVOS!?”

Jon just shrugged again. “I haven’t the faintest. I only knew what was happening south of the Wall when a raven was sent to me. That must have been where she ended up when the War of the Five Kings happened.”

Robb flapped his mouth open and shut several times, before dropping heavily to a seat on the ground and held his head in his hands. “Do I even want to know about this war?”

“Not really. It’s not a happy subject.”

Theon grimaced. “Your future sounds like a disaster. Maybe that’s why your foreign god sent you back.”

“Why me, though? I barely did anything, in the grand scheme of things. Even during the Battle of Winterfell, all I did was hide behind a wall and scream at an undead dragon -” He held up a hand at the both of them about to shout. “An undead dragon, I might add, that wouldn’t have been dead if I hadn’t chosen the worst possible way to collect a wight to display at the peace talks.”

Theon flopped backwards into his bedroll. “I cannot believe this. You’re talking about dragons - UNDEAD dragons - as if they are mundane. There aren’t even any dragons left, and you’re talking about undead ones. Either you’re a legendary liar, Snow, or we’re all going to die.”

Robb looked up. “Weren’t you talking about that wildling before? The Weeper? Go back to that. I can’t handle more of this fantastical subject.”

Jon snorted. “If you like.” He slowly sat down cross-legged on his bedroll. “The Weeper didn’t like the remaining Free Folk listening to the words of a crow. Didn’t like crows in general; he split from Mance’s army the moment he died, and fled into the deeper cold, instead of working with crows to cross over the Wall to safety.”

“One night, he and his raiders captured a few of our band. We found their heads on wooden spikes later, made of ash and eight feet long even after being driven into the ground; there was another four feet or so that were staked into the ground. It must have taken them half the night to drive them so deep into the frozen earth, to send us that message. I remember being able to pull out one of those stakes by myself, one-handed, while the others took four men to free them.”

“Gods be good.” Robb breathed.

“Hey, Robb.” said Theon, grinning. “Who do you think would win in a contest of strength? Jon Umber, or Jon Snow, after six months of eating properly?”

“Which Jon Umber?” Robb replied, his voice mirthful.

“Either. Maybe both. Smalljon wrestling his left arm, and Greatjon wrestling his right.”

“Jon Umber, then. No question. Now, make it a year of eating properly…”

“Oh, damn the both of you.” the wide smile on Jon’s face belied the heat in his reply.

Robb laughed loudly. “Go on, then. Tell us what happened with the Weeper.”

“He kept picking us off, raiding us in the night and running off with Free Folk. he would always try to go after the former members of the Night’s Watch, if he could, but he’d take whoever. Cut out their eyes, and then stick their heads on spikes to taunt us. They called him the Weeper because his eyes were always inflamed and leaking; it was said he hated anybody who could see clearer than he did, and would cut out their eyes for trophies.” Said Jon. His voice grew quieter. “Finally, he took someone important. The goodsister of the former King-Beyond-The-Wall, Val.”

“You don’t mean Mance Rayder, do you?”

“Just so.” Jon nodded. “The people of the seven kingdoms considered her a princess, though the Free Folk wouldn’t have; the title isn’t hereditary. I formed a party and hunted The Weeper across the whole of the Frostfangs, never letting him have a moment’s rest. Never enough time to kill her or to rape her. Always one step behind.” his eyes grew soft. “We cornered him on the Frozen Shores, him and his raiding party. They outnumbered us by two to one, but we fought just the same, and we slew them to a man. The Weeper was the toughest of them all. We fought for nearly an hour, myself and my valyrian steel against his massive scythe and two hand sickles.”

“You won, obviously.” Said Theon, leaning towards him.

“Yes. He nearly had me, near the end.” Said Jon. “I was almost too tired to lift Longclaw, at that point, but Ghost, my direwolf, nearly ripped off his ankles in an attack of opportunity. I severed his spine in a single stroke while he was distracted.” he smiled. “His eyes never stopped weeping, even in death. Only when the cold froze him solid did they cease.”

He leaned back, and the two of them staring raptly at him. He smiled, sadly. “And that, friends, was how I ended up betrothed to my wife.”

Robb rocked backwards in shock. “Wait - what? How does… _oh!_ ”

“You?” Theon exclaimed, eyes wide. “Married to Val, the wildling princess? A woman like that married _you_ , Snow?”

Jon laughed. “It was close enough to the Free Folk way of stealing your future spouse from another clan to count, in her eyes, for her to declare herself mine the day after we freed them all. Not a single man objected to us being married on the spot, except for me. I was still fresh from exile, you see, and wanted to at least court her a little.”

“Oh, Others take you Jon!” Robb shouted.

“Robb, your brother’s a poof.” Theon said loudly. “No other explanation. A woman throws herself at him - Wildling royalty, to a bastard - and he says-”

“Oh, fuck off!” Jon shoved at Theon, and now they were all laughing.

“This daft bastard says ‘please, milady, don’t jump on my cock! I want to bring you flowers and serenade you sweetly first! Whatever you do, in the name of the Old Gods and New, don’t swallow me to the hilt the instant we are alone!’ You’re a fucking sword-swallower, Jon, the ultimate nancy-boy. We’ll need to find you some different type of pillow-biters if we bring you to Winter Town- AUGH! Get off me, Snow!”

“Now you’ve done it!” Jon roared, as he laughingly wrestled with Theon on the hard ground.

“I won’t do it, Jon! I’m not sucking your cock! I REFUSE!”

Robb fell backwards off the lump of his saddlebags, wheezing with laughter, as the two boys wrestled and fought. Eventually, though, the two separated, falling apart, and gasping with laughter. The sound of animals was far away, and the tail end of Summer kept the air just warm enough to not require lighting a fire for warmth. The mood was light, and thoughts of just why they were camped together on the Kingsroad were distant in their minds.

Eventually, Robb picked himself up, and his cheeks ached with the remnants of good humor. “I’ve been trying to get you two to get along for years, I think. I started to think it would take magic to make it work; I never knew just how right I was.” Robb picked up the saddlebags he had been using as a seat, and moved them further outwards. “I’ll take first watch. I’ll wake someone in a few hours.”

“Good. I’ll rest quickly, then.” Said Jon. the two boys slipped into their bedrolls, and the camp grew quiet.

Eventually, though, Theon spoke again. “What did she look like?”

“Mmm?”

“This wildling princess of yours. What did she look like?”

Jon went silent, for a little. “She was beautiful.” he said, finally. “Golden hair, like the sun as it dips low, or dark honey. Sometimes she wore it in a tight braid, down to her waist, but mostly she wore it wild, and it fell long and curly, almost like loose ringlets. She had high cheeks, and a sharp jaw, and a nose that was small but pointed. She had eyes like the sea, and changed color depending on the light as the sea does. Sometimes they were blue, but most of the time, they were a pale grey, and could stare right through you. She could have been the jewel of any Southron court.”

“... what about her body, though?” Theon asked, lewdly. He laughed, as he heard Jon shift and give a glare. “Don’t be chivalrous with me, Jon. I need to know just how amazed I should be you won this woman.”

“... Fine.”

“How were her tits?”

“High, and firm. They were large even before we were together, and they only got bigger after each child.” Jon closed his eyes. “When I last saw her, heavy with our third, they were bigger than the head of a child.” Theon sucked in a breath. “I'll never understand how they never began to droop, but I'm grateful they didn't. She had broad hips, and a narrow waist. She was slender, but her thighs were thick, and she had muscle all across her; the life of the Free Folk doesn’t allow for lazing in the sun. Damn, I miss her…”

“Lucky bastard. She fuck well?”

“Like an animal.” Jon groaned, his northern accent thickening. “Dammit, Theon, stop talking. You’re making me REALLY miss her.”

“Both of you be quiet!” Robb called. “If I don’t catch one of your wargs because I can’t hear strange sounds over your gossip, I’ll haunt you in death!”

“You tell Greyjoy here to stop reminding me of my lady wife, brother!” Jon shouted. “Or else the only strange sounds you’ll hear will be from beneath my furs!”

The sounds of the night were shattered by loud, uncontrolled laughter.

 

* * *

 

It took just over a moon to cross the distance from Winterfell to the port city of Duskendale. If the three of them had been more accustomed to long rides, they could perhaps have made better time, but the neck slowed their rides, and Jon’s legs throbbed and chafed at the end of each day, filled with bruises. Not once were they attacked by the Three-Eyed Raven, and Jon did not have the faintest idea why; the feeling of constant paranoia had passed, but he was still left feeling unsettled, and wary of strangers.

When they reached the city, Robb made for the Dun Fort, to treat with their lords. They had sent a raven when they reached the Twins to King’s Landing, and it discomforted Jon greatly to deal with the men who had once murdered Robb, but to arrive at Dragonstone when the realm knew full well Stannis was at King’s Landing serving as Master of Ships would only bring suspicion upon their group. As the Heir of Winterfell dealt with the Lord Rykker and exchanged meaningless platitudes, as was his necessity, Jon and Theon made for the ports and portside stables.

Theon stopped walking as the ships came into view, and Jon came to a halt briefly after. The Greyjoy stared at the vessels, silently, before taking a great loud inhale through his nose. “You smell that, Jon?”

“Dead fish?”

“The sea.” Theon said, wistfully. “I’ve been away from it for too long. Did you ever go sailing, in your other life?”

“A few times.” Jon grimaced. “I wasn’t fond of it. When I wasn’t laid up with injury, I was sick off the railing.”

“Ha!” Theon laughed. “You Northerners. You’ve been afraid ever since your Bran the Burner. You have to breathe the salt air, let the Drowned God strengthen your legs before you can really understand it. I was born for this.”

Jon waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t go pretending you’re a pious man, Greyjoy. Everybody knows you don’t pray to much of anything at all.”

“Mayhaps I’ve reconsidered my position!” he declared, a wide smirk on his face. “After all, if you are to be believed, your Red God is real. Who’s to say that my Drowned God, and your Lord Father’s Gods, aren’t real as well? Maybe even the South’s Seven are real as well, with all their pomp and circumstance. Perhaps I’ll find religion the moment I step on the deck of a ship.”

“Perhaps you’ll find you’ve lost your sea legs and hurl over the side within five minutes.”

Theon laughed. “It amazes me how much better you are now that you’ve known a woman, Snow. We can actually have a conversation, now. How long did you have to live before that was possible?”

“At least twenty years beyond today.”

“You’re not certain?”

Jon shrugged. “Time flows different beyond the Wall. it never truly thaws even in summer, and we lacked a Maester’s wisdom in reading the stars for the exact years, and the turn of the seasons. The only true marker is the turning of the moon.”

“Savages.” Theon replied. “But they did well, if they mellowed such a prickly fellow as you. You used to fly into such rages when you thought people slighted you. Now you don’t even flinch when we call you a bastard.”

Jon smirked. “That’s because I now know the circumstances of my birth.”

Theon stopped walking, halfway to a ship captain. “Truly? You know your mother?” his semi-permanent smile widened. “Do tell. It’s one of the greatest secrets of the north: Who did the Honorable Ned Stark stain himself over?”

Jon shook his head. “Not here. It’s not a secret to be shared openly.”

Theon’s eyes grew wide. “That good?”

“Wars have been started over women lesser than my mother. To name myself hers would be… difficult.”

Theon pinched his eyes shut, and shook his head. “How is it that the men who don’t even try end up with the quality women? You and Lord Stark both. I have to wheedle and cajole to even get commoner puss.”

“But Theon,” Jon replied, smirking slightly, “You’re so very good at wheedling and cajoling for commoner puss. How many Winter Town bastards have kraken blood in them, you think?”

“There’s a difference between a fair maiden worth fighting wars over, and a whore with a fat arse.” Theon looked up, and towards the docks. “Nearly as fat-arsed as the draft on that ship there! Gods, the most broken-down longship without a thrall to it’s name could take some of these ships. The Iron Throne is lucky the Ironborn have given up following the Old Ways in Westerosi lands.”

Jon looked at Theon askance. “That… implies that the Ironborn still reave, but farther ashore. If we’re not including Bear Island, of course.”

Theon looked down at Jon, and a thoughtful frown formed. “You know something, Snow…?” he began. “Maybe you can learn something of that. When I’m no longer a ward of Winterfell, and return to my Father, perhaps you could come with me. Sail as my right hand on distant shores. Someone in the north other than the Manderlys should know about the sea. Maybe you can be the one who rebuilds the Northern fleets.”

“Lord Admiral Snow?” Jon asked, his eyebrows arching. “I could be tempted. Add it to the list of all the other ‘Lords’ I’ve been. Balon Greyjoy wouldn’t be so happy that you’re aiding the Starks, though.”

“Father can jump off the gunwales. Your Red God undid over two decades and the entire damned Long Night. This is bigger than him.” He replied, and the smile slipped from his face. “You said yourself that’s it’s a foreign god you don’t hold to. I think whatever it wants you to do, it will be done in foreign lands. You’ll like as not need to know how to captain a ship, so you can go off and have grand adventures, and I can stay nice and comfortable and actually remember all the common whores with fat arses after you die.”

Jon stared at Theon, silently. Theon met his gaze, confidently. After a while, Jon nodded. “You may be right. Thank you, Theon. I am gladdened by your offer.” He turned on the heel of his boot, once again facing the docks. “Let’s go purchase passage. Robb won’t be long with the Maester.”

“Aye.”

 

* * *

 

When the gates to the throne room of Dragonstone opened, Robb carefully schooled his face into a practiced, ‘lordly’ expression. Behind him, he could hear his two companions still. Now was the time for him to play his part, so that Jon could do what they had really come here for.

Stannis Baratheon sat on the throne of Dragonstone, a masterful carving of a dragon so vivid it might have been real. He was cloaked in dark colors, and his eyes stared from sunken sockets with a hard intensity. The three of them approached the throne, and Robb bowed as low as courtesy demanded a visiting lord give to another. “Lord Baratheon.”

“Robb Stark.” Stannis nodded his head only perfunctorily. “Your letter asking to discuss business at Dragonstone came at an inopportune moment. I trust you are not wasting my time.” he glanced to Robb’s left and right. “This is the extent of your guard?”

“My lord, this is Jon Snow, My bastard brother, and Theon Greyjoy, the ward of my house.” Robb gestured to the two. Jon, he could see from the corner of his eye, was staring with that look that he’d slowly correlated with remembering something from his distant future. He knew Stannis Baratheon personally, somehow. Robb remembered, with sudden clarity, that he had mentioned a war of ‘Five Kings’. Perhaps Stannis was one of those kings, if something had happened to King Robert.

“Not one of you three have seen twenty years.” said Stannis, his tone clipped. “Am I to understand that you speak on behalf of House Stark in this unnamed venture?”

Robb bit back his initial response. “I am the heir of House Stark.” Robb said, after a moment’s pause. “I have my father’s trust in these matters. The business is in regards to the Dragonstone mines.”

“The mines?” Stannis repeated. His lips curled. “The mines are barren. Nothing in them but worthless Dragonglass and Bauxite. Anything of value is buried too deep to reach.”

“The North finds that it is in need of Dragonglass, in the coming days.”

“Really.” his tone was skeptical, but Stannis leaned forward in his seat just the same. “It’s too brittle to make swords from. Sharp, but it shears on a plane with overuse even after forging.”

Robb nodded his head, acquiescing the point. “True. however, our notes show they work well in the heads of weapons. Arrows, spears, axes… weapons that will serve the Wall just as well as steel swords.”

“These weapons are for the Wall?” Stannis said, slightly surprised as if he hadn’t considered it. After a few moments, he nodded slowly. “The wall is ill-manned and ill-supplied in these times. It would serve the realm well to equip them better than they are. But why Dragonglass, in particular?”

“Dark wings, dark words.” Robb replied. “It is a quiet subject.”

Stannis’ eyes flickered about to the guards in the room. He understood when a lord was asking for a more private setting. “Shall we continue these discussions elsewhere?” He stood. “The Chamber of the Painted Table will suffice.”

Robb nodded, bowed slightly, and tried not to let out a loud sigh. The three of them had come up with this scheme on the Kingsroad, but even as he rolled it around in his head, he couldn’t imagine the dour lord of Dragonstone believing the hints and whispers of Others.

_I can hardly believe it myself, and I’ve seen the proof with my own eyes etched into Jon’s chest._

The three young men followed after the Lord of Dragonstone, his arms folded tightly behind his back and not sparing them a glance or small conversation. Upwards and through the twisting hallways of the great fortress they followed, until they reached the top floors of the Stone Drum, and Stannis stepped forward through a greater archway. There, the eponymous Painted Table of Aegon the Conqueror lay, clear of any stands or set pieces. Stannis turned on his heel and gestured a single hand at a high-backed chair.

_Now comes the hard part._

Robb turned to Jon, waving his hands dismissively. “Leave us.” he said, disdainfully. “Wait outside. Guard the hallway, if you must.”

A flicker of anger passed through Jon’s face, before his expression hardened. Jon nodded, and left through the door. Theon stepped closer, watching Jon’s coattails, as the heir of Winterfell walked to the seat Stannis had offered him.

Stannis’ mouth was a hard line. “You send your brother away, but not the son of Balon Greyjoy?” he asked.

Robb wasn’t sure if it was disapproval or suspicion in the Lord’s voice; he hoped it was merely the former. “He is a bastard, my Lord. He is a skilled swordsman, but he was not raised with the trueborn children, and is quick to wroth.” he said, lying through his teeth.

“If he is so quick to wroth, then do you not place yourself in danger keeping him as your guard?” Stannis walked slowly around the Painted Table, to a position at the head. “The Blackfyres have taught us that bastards are prone to remembering their slights.”

“Lord Stark feels differently.” Said Robb, curtly. He doesn’t like this line of conversation, but his discomfort was less important than the need to keep Stannis occupied.

“The Honorable Ned Stark’s one stain.” Said Stannis. “Even the South has heard of your brother, when they tell stories of the North and the Rebellion. Some whisper of Ashara Dayne, and that he should be a Sand instead of a Snow.”

Theon perked up. “With respect, my Lord,” he said, as Robb twisted to look at his best friend strangely, “I think the tale to be more scandalous than that. If it were Ashara Dayne, the tale would merely be tragic, and not secret as it is. Many know the Lord Stark was smitten with her at Harrenhal, before Brandon Stark’s murder.”

“We did not travel all these weeks to gossip on my bastard brother, Theon.”

Theon flinched back at the rebuke, nodding once. “As you say.”

Theon was much better at this game than he was. He had too much of his father’s honor to be skilled at it; Jon had vaguely intimated on the ride that this was a dangerous flaw for him. If Jon believed he must be less honorable in the future, then his counsel had weight.

“To business, then.” Stannis placed both hands on the Painted Table and leaned forward; he did not take the seat that was directly behind him. “Why does the North believe that Dragonglass weaponry will be crucial for the Night’s Watch?”

“... Lord Stannis, perhaps you are unaware, but a common saying among our people is that ‘The North Remembers’.” Said Robb, leaning his cheek into his braced knuckles. “We remember the Old Gods, we remember the old ways, we remember the First Men whose blood flows in our veins, we remember old slights and old favors. But most importantly, we remember the old stories, that the south prefers to forget.”

Stannis remained quiet, but a muscle in his jaw jumped. Robb could tell he did not appreciate the flowery language.

“In recent months, we have heard reports of a new King-Beyond-The-Wall being crowned, a man called Mance Rayder.” Robb continued. “He is gathering all of the wildling tribes and marching south. Some say his host could number above a hundred thousand. He means to breach the wall, take his people south, and pillage his way across the North.”

“I have heard no such reports being raised before the small council.” Stannis replied.

“You wouldn’t.” Robb shook his head. “The Night’s Watch’s pleas for aid have been ignored for years. It’s only now that I’ve become aware of it that the problem is being addressed. But what is more concerning to me are the other rumors surrounding Mance Rayder.” Robb lifted his cheek from his arm, and leaned forward. “That Mance is gathering all the tribes and assaulting the Wall, not as an army, but as an exodus.”

Stannis’s eyes narrowed. “The wildlings have lived beyond the Wall for millennia. Why would they leave now?”

“They’re fleeing something.” Robb replied.

“And it’s whatever they’re fleeing that you want the Dragonglass for.”

Robb nodded. “You’re a sharp man, Lord Stannis.”

Stannis pushed himself upright. “And just what could put the King Beyond The Wall to flight by mere reputation alone, mm? You seem to have the answer to that as well.”

“I won’t say it aloud. You will call me a madman, and our talks will conclude with nothing. But believe me when I say that the North will deal with both of these ancient foes, and the South will be able to rest easy in their beds.” Robb rapped a hooked knuckle against the dark lacquered wood of the Painted Table twice. “I want this to be productive talks for both of our houses. Dragonstone is thin with industry, as I understand, but you sit on a resource not easily found anywhere else in Westeros.”

“So be it, then.” Stannis’ head inclined by just an inch.

“Do you have the men available to mine the dragonglass? As Master of Ships, it will be trivial for you to supply the cargo ships to carry the glass to White Harbor, but if we have to import our own workers the costs will change.”

“We will have enough to begin operations.” Said Stannis. “You can expect a cargo ship to sail for White Harbor loaded with Dragonglass within a moon.”

“And who should I speak to, if I wish to talk of taxation and ownership rights?”

“Maester Cressen is the one with his gold link in his chain. I will call him from the Sea Dragon Tow-”

A Woman’s faraway shriek rang through the halls.

Theon gave a start. “What was that?”

Stannis’ back went ramrod-straight. “Melisandre!” Robb’s mouth dropped open in horror, as Stannis burst into a run through the door. The Lord of Dragonstone swung his head back and forth down the halls. “Where is your bastard brother!?” he shouted.

“Gods, Jon, what have you done…!?” Robb hissed.

_Jon had hinted that he had a bad past with this Red Woman, but would he really be idiotic enough to -_

He Didn’t finish the thought, and instead rose from his seat to give chase to Stannis; he could hear Theon following a heartbeat behind him. The Red Priestess’ shrieks of pain continued to echo through the halls, giving them a clear marker to where she was.

Stannis ran faster and faster through the halls, and a small number of guards joined them in their hunt; for a castle of its size, Dragonstone was lightly garrisoned, and few men stood at regular intervals.

Suddenly, though, the screaming stopped. Stannis snarled, snatching a spear from one of the running guards and racing with it pressed against his side.

After what must have been at least ten minutes of running, a hallway full of guards was revealed, crowded around a single open door. Stannis parted the gathered men like a wave, and both Robb and Theon followed in his wake.

Jon was up against the wall, half a dozen weapons pointed at his body; his hands were high above his head, and his sword was unbelted from his hips and on the ground, still in its sheath. His dark, grey eyes were wide, and Robb could see a fear in them that he wasn’t accustomed to seeing from him, especially not after the past two weeks.

Lying next to the lit brazier, across the bedroom floor - for that was what this room was - was a woman in a flowing red robe, face down. The smell of burning filled the air. Robb could not see Stannis’ expression, but the tendons in the older man’s neck bulged like iron cords.

A guard by Stannis’ side reached down to Melisandre’s shoulder and rolled her onto her back. The stench of burned flesh became stronger, then, as her charred and blackened face revealed itself. Her bright red hair was burned away halfway up her scalp, and her face was face had sealed itself into a rictus of agony. Her eyes were entirely burned away, and the blackest ashes fell from her sockets. The red gem wrapped around her throat pulsed with a bright, throbbing light.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided partway through this chapter that it would actually be fun to change perspectives some of the time away from Jon, so that we can see how it all looks from the outside. Hence the Robb perspective at the end. It wasn’t exactly planned that way when I first came up with this story; I’m flying by the seat of my pants just a little bit, even as my good buddy Majin and I brainstorm fun ideas. 
> 
> We know what the plot of this story is, from a ‘Going from Point A to Point C while stopping at Point B’ kind of perspective. But the beauty of these time loop stories is that there are so many details that you can fill in, in between moving the overarching story along. We can be silly, we can be sad, we can be serious as a heart attack, we can touch on ideas and themes that nobody has ever had time to touch on before because of the whole ‘zombie apocalypse in Westeros as a metaphor for climate change’ plot that ol’ Georgie-boy gave us. 
> 
> I really enjoyed writing the three lordlings of Winterfell as a bunch of lads on a camping trip that was the trip down the Kingsroad. We don’t often get the chance to see people in Westeros actually having a good time for the sake of having a good time; whenever it’s there, it’s as a backdrop for other people’s schemes or machinations, and we get the uncomfortable subtext that it is a bad thing to enjoy yourselves while there is still somebody around who plays the Game. being able to explore those three as a bunch of salty young men instead of leaders and heirs was great fun. 
> 
> Thanks for the great response to the first chapter. I don’t really know the points of comparison for AO3, considering I started on FF, but I feel like it was well received for it being my first output here and only being up for a week. Encouragement is what makes men like me write faster. We’ll see if the next chapter comes out in as quick a time as this. I hope I can get through a lot of the early chapters quickly. I'm looking forward to the lives where we are gonna get WEIRD.


	3. Life Three: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dungeons of Dragonstone, and the streets of King's Landing.

“... If it eases your anger at all,” Jon began, finally breaking the hour-long silence, “Know that I didn’t do it.”

Theon didn’t bother dignifying that with words of his own; his only response was to thump his head against the cold, damp iron bars that barricaded his way to freedom.

“I swear, on the Old Gods green and wise, I had nothing to do with it.”

“Oh, of course.” Theon drawled, thumping his head against the bars again. “That just makes it all better, doesn’t it? Nevermind the fact that we’re stuck here in the Dragonstone dungeons for who knows how long, and we didn’t tell a single solitary soul when we left Winterfell that we were going here. _‘You didn’t do it._ ’ That’ll placate a man like Stannis into letting us keep our heads.”

Jon remained silent.

“Of course, this must not be all that much of an inconvenience for you.” Theon continued, the bitterness in his voice rising. “You’ve got your Red God looking out for you. When we are all arrayed before the headsman’s axe, you’ll just get right back up like nothing even happened. Perhaps it will be like a long nap. You will tell your story about Robb getting his cock sucked by that woods girl, I’ll get dragged out of bed at an ungodly hour, and you’ll gallivant along to some other landlocked shitstain of a kingdom like nothing even happened until we all die _again_ from something that you _didn’t do_.”

Jon didn’t respond. Theon snarled to himself and hocked a wad of blood across the room; the inside of his cheek was still bleeding, and his left eye was beginning to swell shut. The guards had held a certain cruelty to them when they arrested him.

“You know, I was actually beginning to enjoy you, Snow.” Theon continued. “And then you go and do some stupid shit like this, and shove a woman’s head into a fire.”

“That’s not what happened.” Jon said, softly.

“It fucking IS what happened!” Theon roared, leaping to his feet and rattling the bars of his cage loudly. “You were the only one in that room, and everybody knows you weren’t supposed to be there! You came all this way to kill that red bitch!”

“I didn’t.” Jon was slumped against the back wall, in the cell opposite of Theon’s. “That’s not what happened.”

“Then what the FUCK did happen? Don’t you dare lie to me, you motherless whoreson, or I’ll stake you to a beach until the tide rolls in!”

“I…” the back of Jon’s head thudded against the damp black stone gently. “I went to her, and asked her questions. She was evasive, as I knew she would be, and I confronted her with things that I knew about her. Things it was not possible for me to have known. She was shocked, and she immediately tried to look into the flames for answers… and…”

“And what?”

“Her eyes lit on fire.”

Theon’s thought process ground to a halt.

“What.”

“I swear, on the Old Gods and the New.” Jon said, wearily. “She was at least an arm's length away from the brazier, but she let out an ear-splitting scream and turned around towards me, and her eyes were boiling in her skull.”

Theon opened his mouth, and closed it again. He swallowed. His mouth was suddenly very dry. “And that’s… not, _normal_ , for these fire priests?”

Jon stared at him across the hallway as if he were simple. “No. it’s not.”

Theon stared back at Jon from across the hallway, before flopping into the wall and slowly sliding down onto his bum. “... Magic.” Theon whispered.

“Aye.” Jon agreed. His tone was sour. “Magic.”

_I’m beginning to fucking hate magic._

“... They won’t believe us, if you say it is magic that killed her.” said Theon. “A fire worshipper killed by fire? Too ironic to be coincidence.” Jon remained quiet in his cell. “Where do you think they took Robb?”

“He’s the heir to Winterfell.” Jon replied. “They would kill him only if they want a war with all the Stark banners. He’s like as not under house arrest.”

“Lucky cunt.”

Jon snorted in laughter.

Theon’s eyes flickered about his cell, and listened to the crash of the waves outside. It was a quiet comfort to him, to be close to the sea again, even if he was trapped. “... So who killed her?” he asked, finally.

“Who?”

“Someone has to have cast the magic, right? Is that not how it works?”

“... I do not know.  But I would have been glad of it, if only we hadn’t been blamed.” Theon glanced over, and he could see Jon’s face set like stone. “The world is well rid of Melisandre.”

“... What did she do?”

“She burned men, women and children alive at the stake in sacrifice to the Red God. Her last sacrifice before her death was Shireen Baratheon, Stannis’ only child.”

Theon could feel the blood drain from his face. “... And you wanted to seek her out?”

“Robb already told you, didn’t he?” Said Jon. “I didn’t survive the wounds that left the scars he saw, but Melisandre brought me back through her red magic. When I saw those scars again, that was the signature of my benefactor carved into my chest. I couldn’t ignore that clue if I tried.”

Theon was glad he was already slumped against the wall. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see if he could stand at the moment. _I do remember Robb saying that. But I didn’t believe it when I heard it, and I never thought of it again until now._

“... Crazed bitch.”

Jon’s loud laughter echoed through the dungeon.

 

* * *

 

Theon was rather surprised when their imprisonment did not lead to a headsman’s axe, but instead dragged out. A few days turned into a sennight. A sennight turned into a fortnight. Theon had begun rearranging pieces of his straw bed to mark off the time they had spent in the dungeon. According to his count, it was nearing the mid-point of their second moon.

The guards didn’t talk to them, when they were brought food. Questions about Robb, or any responses from the North, or about the employment and marital statuses of the guards’ mothers when they were born. Stannis hadn’t come to them, at any point. Neither had been tortured, at least, and they were fed relatively regularly, but he could still tell that his skin was growing pale and pasty, and his fingernails yellowed. If he hadn’t picked up a few habits from Jon in the other cell, of exercising what they were able to do with just their own bodies, he was sure he would have been stick-thin from loss of muscle.

It was during one of those days, when Theon was already awake and repeatedly pushing himself from the floor out of frustration, that Jon woke up with a strangled scream. “You alright over there?” Theon called, not interrupting his exercises.

Jon only panted, eyes wide. Theon cocked his head, suspicious of the lack of answer, and rolled himself to a low standing position. “Speak to me, Snow. are you dying over there, or what?”

“Theon…” Jon gasped. “How many days have we been in here?”

“Almost two moons.”

“No, I mean exact days. I know you keep count.”

Theon’s eyebrows arched, but walked over to the ordered lines of straw. “... thirty-nine days, today.” he said, after counting.

“thirty-nine…” Jon said, almost too quiet for Theon to hear. “And we were travelling for thirty days before we reached the island of Dragonstone… plus the first day that…” A small sound escaped him that Theon couldn’t quite make out. “Seventy days. It’s been seventy days since I woke up.”

“And that means something to you?”

Jon Snow closed his eyes. “... It makes something make sense. And that makes other things make a little bit of sense, too.” he looked back up at Theon. “I had a dream that I haven’t had in more than seventy days. And now I know why.”

“You’re talking in riddles, Jon.”

“Did you know, Theon, that a wolf mother is pregnant with a litter for between two and two-and-a-half moons?”

After a moment, Theon scoffed. “Why in the Drowned God’s name would I need to know that? And what does that have to-” he stopped talking, after Jon fixed him with a withering glare. The idiot actually wanted him to think about it.

So Theon considered it. Why would Jon Snow, time-travelling bastard extraordinaire, care about how long a wolf bitch is pregnant with pups? His father’s sigil was a direwolf, of course, but that didn’t mean-

_Direwolf. Jon Snow mentioned almost a moon ago that he had a direwolf in the future._

Theon’s eyes widened. Jon’s smile grew. “I had a wolf dream.” Said Jon, beaming widely. “My Ghost was just born last night. His mother is alive and well, roaming the Wolfswood, and not dead on the tines of a stag’s antler. He has a hunger for milk, and his eyes have already opened, and though he has never seen my face before, he already knows me.”

_Jon Snow is a Warg. The Bastard of Winterfell was a thing from children’s stories and campfire tales in the dead of night._

Jon leaned sideways against the black stone walls, and a half-stifled laugh escaped him. “The Red God has a sense of humor.” Jon declared. “I fell asleep on the day that my oldest companion died, and now I wake again and again on the day he was conceived.” he stretched out his arm, grasping at something that wasn’t there. “After seventy days, I am a man made whole once again, Theon.”

Theon’s mouth is suddenly dry, and his fingers wrap around the sharp edges of the iron gates too tightly. “... Can anything be done?” Theon asked. “Can you free us with your magic?”

Jon looked at him askance, and then shook his head. “I never trained as a Warg. almost all the Free Folk who knew the skill were killed, by the time we returned beyond the Wall, and I never had the innate talent to expand beyond control of Ghost.”

_No talent? You’re seeing through the eyes of a newborn wolf over a thousand miles away. Fuck everything I know if that doesn’t mean you’re not the Warg King reborn._

Theon bit back his desire to chastise Jon. “Put that on your list of things to do, then.” Theon said, keeping his voice level. “Right above getting us out of this damn dungeon and right below learning how to sail.”

“Priorities.” Jon replied, wearily but with humor in his voice.

“I like this new, non-virgin you, Jon. but come back to me once your hair is drenched in the piss of the Storm God, and you’ve spat in his face for it.”

“That’s an image that will haunt my dreams tonight.”

After that, they said no more. Theon rolled over to his side, and began to do push-ups instead.

 

* * *

 

Another week passed before something new broke their stagnation.

Jon did less and less in his cell, leaving Theon to his thoughts. The man slept whenever possible; Theon imagined he did it so that he could be free through the eyes of his direwolf.

_Damn me for not having a kraken to dream through the eyes of, right?_

A day came, though, that a multitude of guards stomped down through the dungeons. The clatter of iron armor and tramping boots woke Jon from his slumber, and the two of them were immediately on their feet with their backs against the cell walls. The turnkey pulled forward out of the square of guards, and turned to Theon’s cage.

The Greyjoy held his breath, not daring to even have thoughts of freedom. He didn’t see a headsman’s axe among the group, but that meant nothing. The door opened, and a pair of guards stepped through. “What’s happening?” Theon asked. He only got a scowl, in return, and they grabbed him roughly by the arms. “Ow! Hey! Tell me where you’re taking me!”

The last Theon saw was the turnkey walking towards Jon’s cell before he was manhandled out of the dungeon and up the black staircases. Theon managed to walk correctly, even through his awkward position where he was being half-dragged through the halls. He imagined that if he hadn’t been exercising the way he did in the cells, it might have been a different kind of struggle, but his legs had remained strong, and the difficulty only came from not quite being allowed to touch the ground.

Upwards through more stairs they dragged him, until they passed through another hall that he recognized led to the throne room. They pulled him through the doors, and Theon saw for just a brief moment that Stannis Baratheon was seated on the back of that black stone dragon once more before he was flung to the ground. He got his hands underneath him, before a metal boot slammed into his back and forced him back down to the ground.

Theon didn’t tempt fate again by rising, but scowled furiously into the ground and bit the inside of his cheek near hard enough to bleed. He heard more footsteps behind him, and Jon Snow was flung to the ground next to him. “Jon Snow.” Said Stannis, his voice like iron, cold and pitiless. “Theon Greyjoy. You stand accused of murder, of my courtier Melisandre of Asshai. How do you plead?”

“Where’s Robb?” Jon asked, before a boot slammed into his back.

“How do you plead?”

“Not… Guilty.” Jon ground out, his face slammed against the stone.

Stannis remained quiet, for a moment that stretched out like a bowstring pulled taut. “Then you are a liar.” he declared. “By my lordly rights, I would have you both hung by the neck until dead.”

Theon pushed his eyes shut.

“... Lord Stark, however, seems to take offense to my lordly rights.” Stannis continued. “He demanded the safe return of the three of you, and threatened to call his banners if I did not.” Jon exhaled, harsh against the stone, but full of relief. “I returned to him his heir, but kept you two.” Theon heard the sound of crumpled paper waving about. “Now I have received another letter, telling me that I shall have no justice at all for murder, and that the return of Robb Stark to Winterfell just under a week ago was not enough to placate him.”

Theon heard Stannis stand from his throne. “Which means that one of you - the hostage, or the bastard-born - is important enough to the Honorable Ned Stark that he would threaten war, when you are both condemned criminals.” he said. “He also informed me that King Robert, my brother, is approaching Winterfell, and he suspects he will be named Hand of the King. by now, Robert will have reached him.”

“I will not be threatened in my own lands with royal punishment.” Stannis snapped.

Theon gulped.

“But that is what this has come to.” the Lord of Dragonstone said. “I know my brother bears little love for me; he will send his armies to my door if Ned Stark asks him. I am forced to release two murderers from my lands. You took no bread and salt, and so I cannot accuse you of that foul crime, but a woman I invited to my home is dead because of you.” Stannis walked closer to the two of them, until Theon could see his boots from the floor. “So I will ask you again, and may you be cursed in the eyes of the Seven if you lie to me again - how do you plead, to the murder of Melisandre of Asshai?”

“... I asked her questions that only she could answer.” Jon mumbled on the floor. “She turned to the fire for answers, and the Red God rejected her. She turned back to me with her eyes on fire, and fell to the ground screaming. I did not touch her once.”

“You lie to me again, and say it was her own foreign god that struck her down.” Stannis sneered.

“She was an evil, cruel woman, but I did not kill her.”

“Even at the end, a bastard cannot tell the truth.” Stannis turned on his heel. “I want them off my island by nightfall.”

The guards dragged the two of them to their feet. Theon nearly cried with relief -

“You were working with Jon Arryn on something, before he died!” Jon shouted, as they were being dragged away. Stannis came to a sudden stop; if it was possible, the dour lord was standing even straighter than before. “You only had suspicions, but we dragged you away from it, and now he is dead, and you have no answers.”

“Be quiet, Jon!” Theon exclaimed. “He’s letting us go!”

“Tell me I am false!” Jon exclaimed. He wrestled against the guards, and they wrenched him beyond the doorway.

“Wait.”

The guards stopped dragging them along. Stannis turned around, and his face was dark with fury.

“How do you know this?” he asked; his voice was as cold as the grave.

“The reason that I know this is the reason that I sought Melisandre.”

“Jon, shut up! Do NOT tell him about-”

“I will not be named a liar and a murderer, Theon.” Jon said, hotly. “Not when I can prove it false.” Jon’s eyes swung back up to Stannis. “You had suspicions. Suspicions about the royal children. I know not who approached who, but the two of you were working together, and then Jon Arryn is dead from illness almost overnight. You think it wasn’t illness.”

Stannis glared at Jon with an icy intensity for what felt like an age to Theon. “Release them.” He said, finally. The iron hands around theon loosened, and his fingers immediately went to his muscles to try and massage the pain away. “And leave us. Guard the doors, and enter only if you hear violence.”

The guards nodded, and filed out of the room; the large wooden doors slammed shut behind them. Stannis moved forward at a fast clip, until he was right in front of Jon, towering over him. “How do you know this?” he hissed.

Jon doesn’t even flinch, meeting blue eyes with grey. “The same way anybody touched by the Red God does.” he responded. “I saw it.”

_That’s as close to a lie as I’ve ever heard Jon tell, and there’s nothing in it that’s even false._

“The damned Lord of Light again.” Stannis’ frown grew ever deeper. “Well, then? Can your Lord of Light tell me the answers I seek? Melisandre never gave an answer, and only spoke in riddles of Long Nights and foreign legends.”

“... It’s true.” Said Jon. Stannis looked as though the floor had disappeared from under his feet. “All three of them.”

“Who?”

“Jaime Lannister.”

Stannis sucked in a sharp breath, and actually took half a step back. Theon had no understanding of anything they were saying, but this was the first time he’d ever seen Stannis truly stunned. Stannis shut his eyes tightly, and his hands curled into fists so tightly the leather creaked under the strain. “... And Jon Arryn?” he asked, quietly. “Was it them?”

Jon shut his eyes; it’s not an immediate answer. “... I do not think so.” he said, finally. “It was unrelated, but it will be exploited nonetheless. It was not illness.”

“Who? And how?”

“Petyr Baelish.” Theon did not recognize the name, but clearly Stannis did, the way that his eyes glimmered with tightly-leashed fury. “Through Jon Arryn’s wife, Lysa Arryn. Baelish has known the Tully sisters since they were children. I think they were having an affair.”

_Jon just accused the aunt of all the Stark children of cuckolding and murdering the Hand of the King and Lord of the Vale. I don’t even know if he’s lying about it to spite Catelyn or not._

I don’t… I am uncertain of the method. But it was poison.” Jon shook his head. “Something to do with ‘tears’.”

“The Tears of Lys?”

Jon nodded. “That was its name.”

The muscles in Stannis’ jaw stood out in sharp relief against his skin; Theon had to imagine that he was grinding his teeth to a powder. “A rare substance with no residue. It simulates a strong sickness of the belly, and leaves no proof of otherwise.” he said. “More than one Lord of Dragonstone has been killed by such a poison. Expensive, but what is gold, to the Master of Coin?” he folded his hands behind his back, and stood straighter. “You orchestrated this entire council on the Dragonglass mines. A mummer’s farce, to approach her to speak of the Red God. Robb Stark answered to you, and not you to him.”

“... Only partly true, my Lord.” replied Jon, his voice low. “The Wall will have need of Dragonglass. That was no lie.”

“Is that the extent of your visions?” Stannis asked.

“... As much as you are able to effect, yes.”

“Do any of your visions explain why the Red God felt the need to burn out Melisandre of Asshai’s eyes, as you claim?” Stannis asked, glaring.

Jon glanced over at Theon. Theon could only scowl, before shrugging. “... Yes, My Lord.” Jon replied. “In a future that no longer is possible, she falsely proclaimed you Azor Ahai, a prophesied hero, and burned many men at the stake in your name.” Stannis’ expression curdled. “She summoned a shadow to kill your brother, Lord Renly Baratheon, and eventually burned your daughter at the stake as well.”

Stannis’ eyes lit with fury; he said nothing, but his chest pumped furiously with his breathing, as if suffocating on perfectly good air. “Foul witch…!” he cursed. “Selyse invited her to cure her childbirth difficulties, and instead she…!” he slammed his mouth shut; Theon thought he realized too late that he had shared delicate matters with a stranger to his house, in his anger. “So the Red God punished her, for the sins she would commit in his and my name.”

“It is possible.”

Stannis, after a long moment, nodded. “Go, then. I exonerate the three of you of murder. The realm may not see it this way, but I will inform Ned Stark the North no longer has quarrel with Dragonstone.” Jon exhaled in relief.

 _Does he not understand what Lord Stannis just said? He just admitted the realm will think us free-roaming murderers, let loose only through the blatant threat of war upon the Crownlands. We won’t be welcome in any court south of the Neck for years. Even I know this. Is Snow’s grasp of court politics truly that tenuous?_ “

If you wish to be rid of the South,” Stannis continued, “then ride north on the Kingsroad and be done with your quest. But…” Stannis paused. “Do you still seek a Red Priest?”

Jon hesitated, but nodded.

“Then go to King’s Landing, and seek Thoros of Myr. He is a reprobate and a drunkard, but deft with a blade, and all of these qualities have made him a fixture in King Robert’s court. He may have answers for you.”

Jon smiled; it seemed to Theon that it was sad. “Aye. I know Thoros of Myr, and his flaming sword.”

“I will have your personal effects brought to you.” Said Stannis. “As well as compensation for the unjust imprisonment.” Stannis hesitated, and then bowed, just a fraction lower than politics would dictate a lord bow to another, and certainly lower than one would require a lord to acknowledge a noble’s bastard. “I ask your forgiveness for my actions.”

“You have it.” Jon replied. “Your sense of justice is well-known, and you acted only as you knew the situation. No man could fault you.” he glanced at Theon, and the Greyjoy quickly nodded his assent as well. More than anything, he wanted to leave before their good fortune turned.

Stannis straightened. “Then if you will excuse me, I have a great deal many things to attend to. My guards will attend to your needs, and book you a ship. Good day.” he turned on his heel and quickly exited the throne room, leaving them to themselves.

Jon exhaled. “Shit.”

“What?” Theon asked.

“I reacted too harshly to his accusations. I thought I had grown past that, but I see now I haven’t.” Jon turned to Theon, and his eyes were weary. “And now I think I have just started a war.”

 

* * *

 

When Jon counted the coinpurse Stannis had awarded them, it equaled out to 200 dragons - a small fortune to someone born of smallfolk, and a more-than-reasonable ransom for two noble sons who were not heirs. They made good use of it, when they booked a room at _Balerion’s Tail_ , an inn on River Row where sailors and sea captains often rested between journeys.

It was the first time Jon had been to an ‘pristine’ King’s Landing. The first time, when he had negotiated the truce at the Dragonpit, the city was still scarred from previous assaults. The second, he remembered with a deep unease, was when Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of the Ashes, had burned it to the ground. Now, the capital was in full bloom - both the people, and the overwhelming stench of human filth.

The _Balerion’s Tail_ was one of the better inns of the city, Jon discovered, because the smell of shit and death was mitigated by the smell of salt and sea. He and Theon booked a room for the month with two separate beds, and now supped on lamprey pie and a dark, strong beer as thick as liquid bread.

“So what will you do?” Theon asked him, as he chewed on his meal.

“Tell the truth, I am uncertain.” Jon replied. “Events this far back are unclear. By this point in my life, I had already set out for the wall, or was in preparation for it. I thought no further of the South until I was appointed steward of Jeor Mormont many moons later, and handled his letters.”

“So the great Jon Snow isn’t all-knowing after all.” Theon smirked. “What do you know, then?”

Jon thought for a moment, and his mood darkened. “At some point, Lord Stark will discover that all three of Cersei Lannister’s children are bastards born of incest. King Robert died in a hunting accident, Lord Stark confronted them on the truth, and the Master of Coin, Petyr Baelish, will betray him in such a fashion that leads to his death. Thus began a brutal succession war that lasted years, named the War of Five Kings.”

Theon’s face went pale, and his jaw dropped open. “Drowned God deliver us.” he cursed, softly.

“I know not when or why these things happen, only that they did happen.” Jon shook his head, and took a bite of his pie. “And taking into consideration what I have done with Stannis, at least one crucial figure, Renly Baratheon, will live where he otherwise died. What I know of the future means little and less, now.”

“Do you think you have failed in your task?”

“... it’s possible.”

“Then perhaps you should learn as much as you can of the South before things go to shit.” Theon said, gesticulating with his fork as he spoke. “Take advantage of your condition to learn, both for your sake and for everybody else’s. Don’t go about ending this Red God business until everything is perfect. You haven’t told me once of how I ended up in the future, so I can only guess I died horribly; I would prefer that not be how I permanently end up.”

“... Would you really like to know?” Jon asked. Theon grimaced in reply.

“... Damn. Now that you say that, I actually want to know.”

“No. You don’t.” Jon shook his head. “I’m going to just tell you three things.” He leaned forward, and met Theon’s surprised expression with a hard gaze. “You. Sansa. The Boltons.”

Theon blinked, several times, before his face paled. “Gods…” Theon breathed. “What did I - _Sansa?_ But I would never- whatever it is you’re implying, it isn’t possible!”

“Why?” Jon glared. “Because a small part of you still dreams that one day you might be betrothed to her?” Theon flinched back, as if physically struck. “I know about that, too, because you told me, in the depths of your despair.”

_In truth, it was Sansa who told me of your childhood fancy, when we were burning your body, but that doesn’t cut to the quick near as much as this does. And I will make a point of making you bleed, every time you hear the tale._

Theon said nothing in reply, but instead grabbed hold of his beer and took a long, long drink.

Jon shook his head. “You’re an easy enough fate to resolve, but what about everything else? I am only one man, and you’re suggesting I fix a casket of wildfire that has been steeping for half a century. And that isn’t even considering what this Lord of Light wants.”

Theon dropped his empty mug to the table. “... As far as we know, you are being given infinite attempts to do SOMETHING.” He said, a little too loudly. “Even a simpleton can get a complex problem correct if given enough tries at it, and the past few moons have convinced me that whatever your flaws are, you are not a simpleton. Your problem might have no relation to the politics of Westeros whatsoever; so be it. Fuck the original goal. Use it to your advantage.”

“And how might I go about doing that?”

Theon shrugged, slumping. “If I were you, I would use the opportunity to fuck every noblewoman from Last Hearth to Sunspear, but I don’t think you’d go for that.” Jon could feel his face go red at the suggestion; Theon laughed at his discomfort. “If you won’t take personal pleasure from a divine blessing, then take the time to master yourself. Become a legendary swordsman, or the pinnacle of a strategist, or an artful musician. Hell, given enough tries perhaps you can figure out how to be a deft enough politician to end up on the Iron Throne, though given your skill at politics that might be the most difficult one of them all.”

“It would not be as difficult as you imagine, I think.” Jon smirked, taking a swig of his beer. Theon opened his mouth to continue, but closed it again, and stared at Jon with wide eyes.

“... Does this have something to do with your mother?”

“I cannot answer that question.” Jon’s smirk only grew wider.

“... Mermaid’s teats, you’re not a secret bastard of the Mad King’s wife, are you?”

Jon burst into uncontrolled laughter. “No, my friend. I’m not a secret bastard of RHAELLA Targaryen.”

Theon’s eyes grew wider, and Jon only laughed louder.

 

* * *

 

It took only a day for Jon to realize that his reputation had preceded him; the smallfolk of King’s Landing gossiped endlessly about the attempted murder of Stannis Baratheon two moons ago, foiled by a foreign priest. What should have been old news suddenly came alive again with the news that the Hand of the King himself threatened Stannis with imprisonment if the assassins were not released; speculation whirled with who the assassins could be, but all knew that the Master of Ships had fled back to his island, full of fear at the Hand of the King who had not even set foot in King’s Landing.

There was no possible way for him to safely approach the Red Keep with such an outrageous fable being spread (And Jon could only wonder just who could have such details as this, even if they were morphed beyond truth), and neither he nor Theon knew where Thoros of Myr resided. It was folly, too, to wander a city of half a million souls and endless taverns to try and find the ones that the drunkard priest frequented. It wasn’t until the noon sun was beating down on them, practically boiling them in their northern jerkins (Jon did not remember his previous trips south being so HOT) that Theon suggested the Street of Steel.

“You said that Thoros of Myr has a flaming sword, correct?” He had said. “Unless his was a Valyrian Steel blade, the fire must warp the metal, given time. He must purchase regular replacements to continue fighting.”

The logic was sound, and so the duo found themselves among the clank and clatter of the Street of Steel. Theon was right; near every blacksmith he spoke to knew of Thoros, as the Red Priest had bought swords from almost all of them. Few, however, were charitable towards him for how quickly he destroyed their work, and none knew anything about his living situation.

Jon scowled, twisting around in the middle of the street; he and Theon had separated to cover more shopfronts, and after near a dozen responses to the same effect on Thoros, he was beginning to believe that the idea was a dead end. The evening sun was beginning to set, and he now wished only to return to their shared room in the inn and eat.

There was something that twinged a part of his mind, though, as he looked at the blacksmiths at their craft. A half-forgotten memory, something important. He couldn’t place a finger on what he could have forgotten from his first life, so early on, but he knew there was something.

_Perhaps I simply miss the weight of Longclaw on my side, and my mind is trying to trick me into hunting down Valyrian Steel here. As if such a valuable thing would be open for the smallfolk to see; it would be stolen within a fortnight._

“Jon!”

Jon Snow’s head lifted to see Theon walking briskly towards him, a wide smirk on his face. “There you are. Come, I’ve finally had a bit of luck in our search. An ironmonger said that Thoros is a regular patron of a master smith named Tobho Mott.”

“Lead on, then.” Jon gestured forward, and the two pushed through the crowds of men clogging the street up the hill. Jon’s eyes wandered as he walked, taking in various tools of war on display and comparing them in his head to both Longclaw and the nameless castle-forged blade on his hip. There were some of superior make to Mikken’s work, but not many.

The further and further they climbed up the hill, the greater the craftsmanship on display, and the more grand the buildings, until at last Theon took him to a house at the very top. It was a grand building, multiple stories high, with doors carved of pale white weirwood and pitch-black ebony, and stone knights wearing fantastical armor stood guard. Jon glanced about the front of the building, his expression pulling the more he took in. “This is Thoros of Myr’s preferred armorer?”

“The man must be a fearsome melee fighter, if he can afford this.” Theon agreed.

“He certainly knew his way around a blade.” Jon cocked his head. “Until he got chewed up and spat out by an undead ice bear, but that’s hardly sporting.”

Theon could only gawp at him in shock as Jon rapped on the double-doors insistently. After a moment, a young, slim girl pulled open the doors just a fraction, staring at him with wide eyes. “We wish to speak to Tobho Mott, about another customer of his.” Jon told her. The serving girl nodded, pulled the doors open further and led them to a sitting room.

All around them in the sitting room, beautiful colored weapons and armors sat in display. Flanges, hammers, swords of all lengths and widths lay strapped to display cases on the wall, and armor from chain to scale to full plate stood on mannequins of wood and clay. Jon had long to stare at them all, for Tobho Mott did not immediately appear, and something about the sight of the swords set the uncomfortable feeling that he had forgotten something important ringing louder.

Finally, the master armorer entered the room, clad in a black velvet coat speckled with hammers. “Welcome, my lords.” He said, with a faint Essosi accent that Jon could not place. “My servant informs me you wish to speak of another who has graced me with their patronage. Who do you seek?”

“We are in search of Thoros of Myr.”

As soon as Jon said his name, the smile on Tobho Mott’s face fled, and a disgusted scowl replaced it. “That false preacher? Bah. He comes to me after every tourney, when his Wildfire deceit has warped yet another sword of his beyond repair. May the Black Goat feast on that charlatan. I would not straighten a horseshoe for that man; the apprentices and journeymen craft his blades, instead, and I charge him as if it were my finest.”

_It was not Wildfire that he used beyond the Wall, though. That was real fire, that did not douse itself. Perhaps he was not so much a charlatan in my time._

“Does he have a blade being made now?” Theon asked.

“He does. It was one of my apprentices, this time.” Said Mott. “Shall I bring him here?”

Jon stood. “Perhaps we can go to him. No need to dirty your floors with the soot of a forge.”

“Just so.” Tobho Mott smiled. The two boys followed the master armorer outside, to the massive stone outbuilding that served as the forge. Jon had thought the summer day was hot; stepping inside the forge was a step beyond, and he shuddered slightly as he involuntarily made associations to the day Drogon almost roasted him alive.

Rows and rows of ironworking benches spread across the room, at least two for every forge. Young boys worked the forge bellows to maintain their heat, while older ones made the air ring with their hammers. Tobho Mott stepped through them all, and led to a journeyman bent over what appeared to be a half-finished helm, with crude horns jutting from the forehead not yet beaten smooth.

Jon froze. His eyes grew wide. He recognized the boy before him, and knew his name before Mott shouted it over the din.

“Gendry!”

The boy’s head snapped up, and his icy blue eyes met Jon’s dark grey eyes for only a moment, before he stood straighter and dropped his head back to the ground. “Yes, Master Mott?” he asked, a sullen servileness to his voice that sounded utterly alien to Jon.

“I put you in charge of the Red Priest’s sword. The lord…?”

“Snow.” Jon answered, his throat dry from the heat. “Jon Snow, and Theon Greyjoy.”

Tobho Mott’s eyes lit at the sound of the name of the Iron Island’s Lord Paramount. “Lords Snow and Greyjoy wish to know of the charlatan’s business. How do you fare?”

“‘s almost done, m’lords.” said Gendry, not looking up from his blacksmith’s apron. “Just need to set the hilt, is all. Will be done on the morrow.”

“... May I see it?” Jon asked. Gendry glanced upwards to meet Jon’s gaze, just for a moment, before shuffling off to an iron chest some feet away. He opened it, revealing what looked like a number of half-finished projects, and pulled a blade from the top. He walked back over and handed it to Jon. it was a serviceable blade; not the best he had seen, and not as good as the blade at Jon’s side, but that was rather the point of it. The long thin tang of the blade was exposed, just as Gendry had said; the hilt had not yet been fitted onto it.

“Thank you, Gendry.” Said Jon, after he had finished inspecting the blade; his eyes lingered overlong at the tang; something about its shape set the uncomfortable feeling of _forgetting_ tingling stronger. “Will you be sending a messenger once the hilt is fitted?”

“Yes, m’lord. Just get an urchin, no fuss.”

“Then Theon and I will return tomorrow, and meet Thoros here.”

“Will that be all?” Tobho asked, his eyes pinched.

Jon lingered. Gendry, the tang, the blade, all of it was outside his mind and he couldn’t understand _what he was forgetting-_

_Arya. I woke up more than two moons before I left for the Night’s Watch. I only had Mikken start forging Needle a single moon before I left._

“WAIT!” Jon shouted, overloud. Tobho, Gendry and Theon all flinched back at the sudden raising of his voice, and Jon flushed a little deeper than the heat required of him. “Gendry. There is something I want you to make. Something beautiful, and worth more of your effort than this cheap blade for Thoros.”

“As you wish, m’lord.” Gendry nodded, but his eyes were up off his apron, now, and Tobho Mott was leaning forward, a look of mild curiosity on his face.

“I need you to make me a sword. A thin one, thinner than the common style of Westeros.” Jon said, voice moving fast. “A style like those they carry in the Free Cities. Long, whippy, flexible. Made more for the thrust of it than the cutting. It will be for a girl’s hand, one that will never grow to be very tall, but quick, and reflexive, and very stealthy.”

Now Gendry’s eyes were focused, and a bit of the intensity he remembered glimmered. “I think I have the image of it, though I know not the style of Free City swords.”

“I do.” Tobho Mott spoke up. “You speak of a Bravo’s sword. An enlightened design for a woman’s hand. Though it would never pierce a properly made plated armor, she might instead cut out a man’s throat or gouge his eyes through the gaps in his helm. Perhaps she could even disable a man's sword-arm by piercing through the chain mail of the unplated sections, at the elbow and the armpit, with a narrow enough point.”

“Mmmm.” Gendry nodded, stroking the small patch of bristle on his chin thoughtfully. “I see it now. And who shall this be for?”

_The woman you loved._

“Arya Stark. My sister, and daughter of the new Hand of the King.”

Tobho Mott recoiled as if physically struck. “You are Lord Stark’s-” He half-screeched, as Gendry’s mouth dropped open, icy blue eyes wide as saucers. “Forgive me, my Lord, I did not realize you were Lord Stark’s - Yes. Mm-bhegm!” he cleared his throat, loudly. “It would honor me to personally forge a blade for a member of the Hand’s family. I shall begin-”

“No.” Jon shook his head. “It has to be Gendry.”

Tobho Mott’s eyes widened. “But- But my lord Stark, he is only a Journeyman! The boy is talented when he applies his mind, yes, and strong - but I have mastered my craft across the world! I trained with the Qohorik masters, and learned to reforge Valyrian Steel! Surely, it would please you more if I applied my hand to-”

“I’m not a Stark, Master Mott.” Jon interrupted. “And I believe Gendry here to be talented enough for the task. It would be more meaningful this way, as well.”

“M-Meaningful, m’lord?” Gendry said, stumbling; Tobho Motts eyes narrowed at the statement as well.

Jon shrugged. “The daughter of the Hand of the King receiving a custom blade forged by the son of his best friend? I can think of nothing better.”

The gathering went dead quiet; you couldn’t hear them breathe over the ring of hammers. “Son of his- what?” Gendry shook his head. “What are you talking about? I’m the son of no one. I’m a bastard, m’lord.”

Jon felt the world crack, just a little; he had the distinct feeling he had just made a grave mistake. “... oh. I see. My apologies.” he turned away, awkwardly, and saw Tobho Mott’s face frozen in fear.

_At least one person here knows his parentage. I had no idea that Gendry wasn’t aware of it from the start, the way that he introduced himself so forcefully on Dragonstone._

Jon nodded, and smiled apologetically. Tobho relaxed, and nodded.  “Well, then!” He folded his arms behind his back. “If that is your wish, Then Gendry shall craft the finest weapon he has ever made. I shall _personally_ supervise him through every step of the process.”

Gendry whipped his head to Tobho in shock, as Jon pulled out his coinpurse of 200 dragons and began to discuss payment.

 

* * *

 

The pair of Northern boys had nearly reached the _Balerion’s Tail_ on River Row before Theon decided to voice himself. “So, who was he?”

“Hmm?”

“That Journeyman. You recognized him, too, though you knew not that he worked at that shop.”

Jon felt his face twist as he considered his folly. “I did. We fought together.”

“You knew who his father was when he himself didn’t.” Theon countered. “That’s more than just fighting together.”

Jon wobbled his head in acquiescence. “Before I was banished with the Wildlings, Gendry and Arya were… close.”

Theon blinked, before barking out an ugly laugh. “HA! Little Arya and a great big lummox like that!? He probably broke her in half!”

“Talk carefully, Greyjoy. That’s my nine year old sister.” 

“She wasn’t nine when they were ‘close’, or else that blacksmith’s boy is far more degenerate than I pegged him for.”

“This is why I was unable to stand you when I was a child, Theon.”

Theon laughed loudly, once, as they reached the door of their chosen inn. “And what has changed you, that I am suddenly tolerable?”

Jon snorted, grinning to himself. “My friend Tormund is fouler than you could ever be. Enormous bastard, beard down to his chest and hair redder than your own blood. Chief of the Haunted Forest clans, last I saw him. Kept trying to convince me to try and take one of his daughters into Val and my marriage bed.”

“Gods, the more I hear you talk the more I want to go beyond the Wall myself.” Theon groaned. “And I bet you didn’t, you daft idiot?”

“The Free Folk might have a view of marriage that comes out to ‘as many as you can keep happy’, but that was never me. I only needed one woman in my life.”

“I despise you, Snow.” Theon said, a playful heat in his voice. “I really do. I have a weakness for ginger girls, and you just threw away that chance when it’s handed to you on a platter.”

“What makes you think I don’t have a weakness for gingers?” Jon countered, grinning, as they both made their way up the stairs of the loud and well-lit inn. “My first love was a ginger from the Haunted Forest, and I’ll never fuck another after her. Mayhaps I’ll go back beyond the Wall, now that she’s…” he trailed off, eyes widening. “She’s… alive again.”

“Fuck off.” Theon continued, not taking notice of his companion’s discomfort. “All these wildling women. It’s because you’re prettier than a girl, isn’t it? Your _long, curly_ hair and your _soft, grey_ eyes.” Theon cackled, whirling about on the stair. “Maybe I should start brooding and talk of duty and honor, you know. Make the girls think I need saving, just like you, and they’ll throw themselves at me!”

The feeling in Jon’s chest passed, and he shook his head with a rueful smile. “You’re a menace. And what kind of Ironborn lets the women think he’s weak?”

“You say that now.” Theon japed. “But once I’ve got their legs around my neck, it’s-”

Theon’s voice cut off, and his arm shot out across the hallway. His other hand pointed towards the door to their rented room, which was open just by a fraction. “Did you lock the door before we left?” he whispered.

“I did.”

Theon’s hand snaked down to the knife strapped to his waist, and Jon likewise slowly drew his castle-forged sword from its sheath so that it made no sound. The two slowly crept forward through the hall, stepping lightly enough so that the wood would not creak. Jon lifted his sword high, preparing for a powerful thrust. Theon raised his open palm to the door, turned to Jon, and nodded.

At once, Theon shoved the door open, and the two rushed into their chambers screaming bloody warcries. A man sat on the edge of the furthest bed, dressed in black velvet robes, and the room stunk of rich perfumes, of lilacs and rosewater. He did not flinch at their charge, but stared at them instead with a small, greasy smile.

Jon froze, near as instantly as he saw the figure, but Theon kept charging. He only stopped when he was that they were unarmed. “Who are you!?” He shouted, brandishing his knife wildly.

“Oh, I believe the better question to be, who are YOU?” the bald man replied, his voice high and oily. He glanced past Theon, staring at Jon with a knowing look. “I believe your friend here already knows my face.”

Jon gulped. “Varys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How? How am I doing this? I’ve written the past two chapters in as many weeks. This is the fastest I’ve written in years. Have I become part machine without looking? Am I morphing into Brandon Sanderson? Mysteries upon mysteries.
> 
> A lot of people have been asking me if this story will be ‘friendly’ or ‘unfriendly’ to certain characters. The short answer: yes. The long answer: yes and no. Remember, this is a Time Loop story. The only thing that stays constant are the things that happened before Jon woke up in the waning months of 297 AC, and the things that he can remember about people. What I can say is that I will be FAITHFUL to characters, both their good and their bad sides, but Jon has the unprecedented ability to really screw things up and make people grow along lines that Canon would have never afforded them. That will be exploited, both for and against his benefit, and I can also use this to make people develop in really, really weird/crackish ways. It's going to be great. All three of those options are going to be exploited, often with the same character across multiple lives.
> 
> (It's worth noting that I will pay far less attention to the characterization that went into seasons 7 and 8, because it’s clear that the writers had stopped giving a fuck, but even those will be kept in the back of my head as Jon’s understanding of people. Know, however, that I will treat all of the entities that the show created as ‘BAD END’ versions of characters.)
> 
> I’m not entirely sure if a hundred kudos in two weeks of this story existing is a big number, but I’m still extremely proud of that number. Thanks a bunch to all of you who gave a guy with no other stories to his name (on this website, at least) a shot. I want to ask you all: do you think that my lack of tags for character relationships is helping or hindering people giving this story a read? I was considering not tagging any of the relationships at all, because that way people can go into this without any expectations and can be surprised when I come out of left field with something rare, but that also means that it might hurt my chances of being seen by the people who filter for stories based on the pairings. Let me know what you think.


	4. Life Three: Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Consequences.

“Jon, who is he?” Theon glanced backwards at his companion, not lowering the blade for an instant. Varys remained seated, and gently swirled a rough goblet of wine in his hand.

“Don’t answer anything he says, Theon.” Jon replied, eyes narrowed. “Treachery comes easily to Varys.”

“Treachery?” Varys giggled, as high as a young girl. “I am ever a faithful servant of his Grace, King Robert.” he took a slow sip of his wine, and his smiling eyes flicked between the two. “You mustn’t listen to such rumors, Jon Snow.”

Jon’s grip on his sword tightened. The only memory he had of the Spider, in truth, was of his attempt to turn him against Daenerys, and then his horrible death by dragonfire. Perhaps his experience was not the truest judge of his character.

_Then again, maybe it was._

Varys slowly lowered his goblet to the table, and folded his hands neatly on his lap. “No reaction?” he asked. “I’m disappointed. It gives me small pleasure to watch men who think their secrets are their own sputter and protest.”

“Your ways are not a secret to me, Varys.”

“Then perhaps you and Greyjoy here merely think yourself invisible, walking among the crowds of King’s Landing.” said Varys, with a thin smile. “I assure you, you were not. You were quite obvious in your dealings, I’m afraid. The only question, then, is what those dealings _are_.”

“You’re not afraid of us, or our reasons.” Jon retorted, lifting his blade higher. “You wouldn’t have put yourself in our path if you thought we were a danger. You would know I could cut you down in the blink of an eye.”

“Then I would be very shocked, and very dead.” Varys pantomimed a gape-mouthed look of surprise, before giggling again. “But the natural son of the Hand of the King would not disgrace his lord Father before he’s even set foot in the capital by slaying a member of his Small Council, I think. Not you, at any rate. You’re too much of a Northman for that. So I must ask, then, why you murdered a woman on Dragonstone.”

Theon sucked in a sharp breath ahead of him. “How…!?”

“It’s what he does, Theon.” Jon answered. His eyes were flinty, and the color of sable as he tried to glare a hole through the eunuch. “The spider’s web does not spread as far as you think it does, if you think we killed her.”

Varys shrugged and pouted, flexing his fingers outwards on his lap. “It is true that Dragonstone is rather more difficult to find little birds to roost. Hard living, you see.” he stood, and slapped off his lap with the dangling sleeve of his robe. “But Stannis certainly thought you killed his Red Woman - who has been living at Dragonstone for rather longer than I thought she had, I must admit - and had you arrested.”

Varys slowly hid his hands inside the sleeves of his voluminous robes. “So, tell me. How did you two go from murderers in the court of the most inflexibly just man in the realm, to free in King’s Landing with Stannis’ gold in your purses?” he half-smirked; his oiled, hairless head caught the light of the flickering candles.

Jon couldn’t help but be stunned; his sword drifted downwards. _Varys thinks we secured a pardon by agreeing to serve him_. In that light, their very first visit - to Tobho Mott’s shop, where King Robert’s bastard apprenticed as a blacksmith - took on a more sinister light. _He thinks we are confirming the secrets of the Lannister children for Stannis, so that he does not leave the safety of Dragonstone._

_Which means that Varys knew. He knew that Cersei Lannister had horned the King, and told nobody._

A muscle in Jon’s jaw jumped, involuntarily. The man sitting in front of him had caused the deaths of fully half the Starks of Winterfell - Ned, Catelyn, Robb and Rickon Stark. The entirety of Westeros bled, and countless Houses, great and small, went extinct, because this unman deliberately held back the secret of Cersei’s infidelity. He CAUSED the War of Five Kings.

An old, familiar shade of black rage began creeping into the edges of his vision. Jon no longer cared about his character; The Spider was his enemy.

The eunuch seemed to sense the mood of the room change, for the glib smirk on his face fell away, and now Varys, for all his perfumes and robes, seemed a dangerous man. “I see.” Varys said, waggling his jaw side-to-side slowly. “Then you do know. How unfortunate.”

“You could have told anybody.” said Jon. his voice had dropped an octave, and his eyes gleamed dark in the light. “You could have prevented all that is to come.”

The realm is not yet ready for the truth.” Said Varys, shifting on his feet. “Were the Queen’s actions to be unveiled at the wrong time, it would wreak havoc. Too early, and the fool King Robert will disavow the Lannisters, a short civil war will be fought and won, and he will continue to whore himself and the kingdom into poverty and dissolution. Too late, and the Lannisters would have cemented their grip, never to be dislodged.”

“You WANT the Seven Kingdoms to destroy itself.” Jon snarled.

“What I want is irrelevant.” Varys snapped. “I served a silver-haired failure of a king on the Iron Throne. I serve another black-haired failure now. When the stags are inevitably devoured by lions, a third, golden-haired kingly failure will take his place and cut himself on the throne the second he seats it. No more. I will ensure the next man with silver hair on that throne is worthy of it.”

“Jon…” Theon anxiously bounced on his feet. “Why is he telling us this?”

“Because now, it matters not what you hear.” Varys answered him. “The both of you will neither reach Eddard Stark or Stannis Baratheon, unless the Small Council grows a craving for a bowl of brown.”

“What-”

Jon threw himself to the side, even as Theon continued to speak, the instant he heard a floorboard creak behind him. In front of his very eyes, from the open crack of the worn standing closet doors, a crossbow bolt flew across the room and punched directly into Theon Greyjoy’s throat.

Pain bloomed in Jon’s side the moment he saw this, but Jon still rolled to the side, and lunged forward with his sword into the closet; a spray of blood flew from the darkness and coated his blade. Jon ripped it out of the unseen body as a high voice screamed a warcry behind him. He spun in a half-circle on his heels, and the sword decapitated the young boy, who had to be no older than Bran.

Jon did not allow himself to think, before he turned and lunged forward, and plunged his sword into Varys’ gut to the hilt. The Spider gasped in silent pain, glancing down at the weapon impaled in him; in his soft, manicured hand was a small dagger, wicked sharp and frozen inches from Jon’s side. He looked back up, and his face held a look of shock, and disbelief. Jon ripped the blade out roughly, and the Master of Whispers dropped to the floor, dead.

Jon stumbled to the side, hearing a small body thump on the wooden floor behind him. His free hand clutched at the pain in his side - a crossbow bolt had punctured through his leather jerkin and poked cleanly out to the other side. He dropped his sword to the bed, jerkily running to Theon’s side. The Greyjoy was moving weakly, his fingers clutching at the fletching buried in his adam’s apple.

“Theon…” Jon gasped. Theon’s eyes traced to him, but when he opened his mouth, nothing but a gurgle of blood came out. His fingers stilled, his head slumped to the side, and Theon Greyjoy was no more.

Jon pushed himself to his feet, stunned. In a daze, he turned around, and saw the body he had stabbed through the closet door. It was a girl, brown-haired and short. She looked just like Arya, and she couldn’t have been much older than her, and Jon had stabbed his sword into her skull so roughly that he had almost entirely cleaved her head in two.

The black rage that had lingered on the edges of his vision clouded over entirely. Jon screamed, a wordless, bestial thing, like a wolf howling. He ripped the bloody sword from the linens of the bed, swung it over his head, and began hacking the body of Lord Varys to pieces.

 

* * *

 

Jon fled the _Balerion’s Tail_ that night. The first thing he did was find a healer, someone who knew enough Silver mysteries from the Citadel to serve as a surgeon. He nearly bled out before he found one, on the Street of the Sisters; if he had not bound his stomach wound tight enough to nearly prevent breathing with the bedsheet, and left the bolt inside of himself to plug the hole, he would have. The healer clearly overcharged him for the midnight service, but he removed the crossbow bolt cleanly, and was adequate with a thread and needle.

He was woken roughly, the next day, by the healer shaking him by the shoulder. “What have you done?” he exclaimed, holding up a roll of parchment. The world was blurry, still, and Jon felt sapped of all his strength. The healer shoved the parchment closer to his face.

It was a bounty poster, with two faces sketched on it; the rough likenesses of both himself and Theon, as well as descriptions of their colorings. The offered rewards for either of them was ten gold dragons, a fortune for the non-nobility that clogged the streets.

“These posters are all over the city! Every street has a copy!” The healer exclaimed. “I knew you were trouble, but if the Gold Cloaks find you here I will be killed!”

Jon felt his neck give way, and his head thunked against the headboard. _Varys. They couldn’t have known our faces without him. But if Theon is included, then this must have been something he prepared before he met us, if he didn’t return._

“I…” Jon coughed. His throat was dry, and his voice sounded weak and tinny to his ears. “I will pay… equal to that bounty, for every day I rest.”

The healer paused. “Ten gold dragons.” he repeated. “For every day.”

“I swear it.” Jon rasped.

The healer, a tall, middle-aged man with a Dornish tint to his skin, stared at him silently for some time. “You will need at least a sennight to allow your blood to replenish. You have seventy dragons?”

“I do.”

“And what prevents me from taking your dragons and then calling the Gold Cloaks myself?”

Jon sighed. “Your Maesterly vows?”

“I left the Citadel before I forged my chain.” the healer folded his arms.

“Then I promise that if you attempt to rob me… I will kill you.” his wound throbbed at the thought.

The healer stared at him, eyes dragging across his body, before he shook his head. “Pay me now, or I hand you to the Gold Cloaks myself.”

Jon glared.

 

* * *

 

Jon left in the night of the sixth day. He didn’t trust the Dornish healer. He had made sure to sleep on his coinpurse the entirety of his stay, and though he still felt flimsy, he would not allow himself to wait any longer. He left his punctured jerkin behind, and stole a hooded cloak from the man. He justified it to himself easily enough; there was little and less chance that he had completed whatever task he was cursed by the Red God to complete, and so one day it would be as if the theft had never occurred.

The healer hadn’t lied about the volume of posters across the city. A rough sketch of his likeness was on nearly every street at least twice. Jon knew he could not stay in the city for much longer; he had to leave, and with speed. He had missed his chance with Thoros of Myr, and without the aid of Tobho Mott and Gendry, there was no way he would be able to find him. King’s Landing held nothing for him but death, now.

The problem, then, was finding a way out. Jon had made for the Old Gate, as quickly as his weakened body would allow him, but the opening had become a checkpoint, manned by at least twenty guards inside the archway, and more than that inside the walls. They were examining the wares and carts of those that were leaving, and so it was clear they were on the lookout for smugglers, but even still, Jon could not easily slip past.

Jon vaguely recalled that a man he had once executed, Janos Slynt, had been commander of the city watch. He had been a vain, corrupt man, and had ended up at the Wall as a result of some political struggle. If the gold cloaks were fashioned in the same mold as he was, then there was little doubt that if he could find a lightly-manned gate, he could bribe his way through.

_The trick is actually finding the lightly-manned gate. And that will require a lot of walking._

And so, with nothing better in mind, Jon began the arduous process of making his way towards the Dragon Gate, the next closest exit to him. He kept his cloak draped over his sword, and the hood over his head, even as the sun made the arrangement unbearably hot. Nothing could be allowed to make him noticeable to the city watch.

Jon tried not to think of the night in the _Balerion’s Tail_. he’d been trying not to think of that night for a week now. He tried not to think of how he should have been more careful in King’s Landing so as not to draw attention, or how he should have been more aware of his surroundings in that room. How he should have _known_ that a man as clever as Varys wouldn’t have come alone. How Theon’s eyes, who had laughed and glowered and actually saw jon and not Robb’s bastard brother, dimmed and faded in his arms. How Varys spoke of kings and failures and-

_Wait._

Jon came to a sudden stop in the middle of the street, just outside of a well-decorated brothel with an ornate globe of metal, glass and fire swinging over the door. A man behind him slammed into his shoulder and cursed at him, but Jon’s mind was reaching back, now.

_‘I will ensure the next man with silver hair on that throne will be worthy of it.’ That was what Varys had said, and if his coded words carried through, he was speaking of another Targaryen. But Varys didn’t know that I was Rhaegar’s son, and Daenerys is a woman. So who was he speaking of?_

The world tilted on its axis by a fraction. Varys had a plan. A plan he didn’t have the slightest idea about, even with his foresight. It was clear, now, that the Master of Whispers was a Targaryen loyalist above all, and was working towards a Restoration of the dynasty. But _who_ was he trying to restore? And what had happened to that plan, that he had shifted to Daenerys, and then to him?

_You know nothing, Jon Snow._

Jon grit his teeth. He was fumbling in the dark. He was not a plotter; he never had been. The deceits of the South were a mystery.

_Then perhaps you should learn as much as you can of the South before things go to shit._

Theon’s words echoed in his ears.

“Perhaps I should…” Jon murmured. He shook his head, and began walking again.

He had not taken more than a dozen steps, however, before something slammed into his side, and sent Jon tumbling to the ground. “Oh!” a high voice exclaimed, before another giggled. “So sorry, m’lord!”

Jon shook the impact from his head, and managed to see a pair of young urchins staring down at him. One of them waved excitedly, before they took off running down the street. Jon cursed, good-naturedly, before pushing himself to his feet. He began walking again-

He stopped. His hand flew to his side. “Fuck!” Jon cursed, before taking off at a dead sprint. “STOP! THIEVES!”

The two urchins who had stolen his coinpurse had already disappeared into a side-street, but Jon gave chase all the same, led the fading patter of their feet onto the Street of Flour, home to a great number of bakeries and breadmongers. The more frustrating thing, Jon discovered, was that the Street of Flour was a maze-like lattice of narrow alleyways and blocked off passages. Only a native could remain centered.

Eventually, Jon ended up staring at a dead-end brick wall; he had been tricked away from his quarry. Jon bent over, panting heavily, and restrained the temptation to break his hand punching the wall. Without the hundred-or-so gold dragons he still had to his name, bribing the guards to escape was now impossible.

With a frustrated inhalation of fetid air, Jon straightened himself, resettled the hood on his head, and -

_\- he watched the two urchins race along the squalid dirt roads below, whooping as the playfully tossed their spoils between them. An old woman stirring a foul-smelling cauldron of indistinguishable brown shouted a harsh warning at them, and they answered back with equal filth as a contented purr rumbled through his belly. He sighted a pigeon on the roof next to him, and his tail flicked with excitement -_

Pain exploded in Jon’s head. The world spun for a moment, and he found himself slumped to the ground, temple pressed flush to the brick wall he had just collapsed against. With a shaking hand, he pushed himself to his feet. “That’s never happened before…” Jon murmured. “But I won’t complain.” he turned on his heels, and ran back to the main paths of the Street of Flour.

It didn’t take long, following the larger paved paths, to reach the entrance to Flea Bottom proper. Here, the smell of all the foulness of humanity was at its peak, and Jon’s eyes watered just standing there. To his right, the very same woman he had seen before was still stirring her cauldron of foul brown liquid, in front of a larger pot-shop; to his left, and up, a cat was perched on the roof, its snout covered in red blood.

Jon shook his head wearily at the unexpected burst of magic that had led him there, and began making his way further into the slum. He followed only the wider roads, and felt the eyes of numerous gang toughs tracking him; he stood out by wearing such heavy clothes on such a hot day. In Flea Bottom, men and women alike were stripped down to layers of clothes thin enough to be scandalous, and Jon thought for a moment that he saw children younger than five playing utterly naked in the side-streets.

The streets grew more crowded the further inward he went, and Jon noticed, with a growing sickness in his belly, that there were more old women with foul-smelling pots on the edges of the road, apparently a street-side serving station for the pot-shops they were stationed in front of. Not only that, but numerous residents were actually _paying_ to eat the indistinguishable brown gunk. With a sudden flash of horrified insight, Jon realized just exactly what Varys’ ‘bowl of brown’ was really referring to.

“HELP!”

Jon’s head whipped up. That voice was familiar; it was the boy who had snatched his purse. The Northerner burst into a run, bashing aside men and women to reach the source of the voice.

When he reached yet another twisting side-street, the cry for help became clear. A grown man, with thin, greasy hair and a gap-toothed sneer, had the boy held to the point of a rusty dagger, and the girl trapped by a boot on her neck. In his free hand, he held Jon’s coinpurse, ripped at the cording and moving away from the boy as if he was still in the middle of snatching it.

“Oi!” Jon called out, and he drew his longsword. The two urchins looked up at him, their faces twisting in fear as they recognized him. The cutpurse tilted his head only slightly, but he shoved the dagger closer in to the boy’s chest, enough to make him yelp.

“Tryna be a fuckin’ ‘ero, are ya?” he snarled, and his voice croaked with the evidence of self-abuse. “Not one step closer, or I kill th’ both of ‘em, hear?”

“You misunderstand.” Jon replied, glancing about. The side-streets were narrow, and would not allow him to swing his sword in much more than an up-and-down motion. Memories and lessons from the battle against the mutineers, and Karl Tanner, forced themselves to the fore of his mind. “That’s my coin you’ve got there. I want it back.”

The cutpurse cackled. “Little Northern lordling went and got got, did ‘e?” he shook the hand holding the fat purse, and it jingled loudly. “Well, if it please m’lord, piss off and die. I like the clink of it, so you ain’t ‘avin’ it back.”

Jon’s gaze flickered between the two trapped urchins. He blinked, and a fleeting image of the boy’s green eyes floating in a bowl of brown flickered across his eyelids. _This was life in King’s Landing. This was life, in a city of a half-million people._ He had never seen the like anywhere in the North. He knew, from an academic perspective, that the thieves, rapers and murderers sent to the Wall had to come from somewhere. But knowing it, and seeing it, were two different things.

He refocused on the man, and with his free, gloved hand, grabbed the fuller of the blade on both sides with his fingers, pressing the sharp edge into his palm. With his grip set like a pinched vice at the halfway point of the weapon, Jon lifted the blade up to his side, the point aiming directly at the cutpurse, who laughed in disbelief. “You want to slice yer own fingers off, you dumb cunt? Back off, before-”

Jon lunged, and suddenly, in the cramped quarters and gripping the blade in such a way, the cutpurse shrieked and leapt backwards from what was now a very lethal polearm. The longsword’s reach was halved, but now the razor-sharp point was deftly controlled, and was jabbed forward thrice in a second. The thief snarled, resettled the dagger in his hand, and lunged wildly forward.

Jon twisted the sword in his hand, and the knife clashed along the lower half of the blade, until it slammed against the metal crossguard. Before the thief had a moment to retract, Jon twisted the blade yet again across his body. Now, the hilt and the thief’s knife-hand were above and away from Jon’s head, and the tip of his blade was at the cutpurse’s throat.

“Aaah! Merc-”

Jon didn’t let him finish his sentence as he stabbed forward, punching through the thief’s throat easily and ripping it out again in a spray. The cutpurse dropped his knife to the ground as both hands went to his spurting neck, before falling to the ground.

Jon regripped his castle-forged blade by the hilt, flicked off the blood, and resheathed it in a single motion, before bending over to take his coinpurse back.

“THAT WAS AMAZIN’!”

Jon looked behind him. It was the boy who had shouted, while the girl had pulled herself to her knees and massaged her neck while quietly coughing. “How’d you do that, m’lord?!” he shouted again. “You were all, ‘Hah!’ and ‘Swasha’!” he pantomimed a rough approximation of his crossguard hook technique in time with his sound effects. “Me ma always said only a fool grabs a blade by the edge, but you did it and you got all yer fingers still!”

“Quiet, Aedrick!” the girl hissed.

“But-” the boy began to whine, but his eyes shot wide and he quickly shut his mouth as Jon took a single step forward. “S-Seven blessin’s on you, m’lord, for savin’ us.” he mumbled. “M’sorry I took yer purse.”

Jon simply stared at the two, silently, until the girl was fully back on their feet. They looked like a pair of skittish fawns, twitching in place and ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

After a moment, Jon jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “How long will it be before the city watch discovers him?”

The urchin boy - Aedrick, his sister called him - blinked rapidly, before shaking his head wildly. “Gold Cloaks don’t go down the alleys, m’lord, an’ they don’t visit but once a week. An ol’ nan’ll clean up before they find ‘im. They always do!”

 _The old nans. Those must be the crones who were serving the pots of brown._ Jon resisted the urge to shudder. Cannibalism wasn’t an unforgiveable sin in the eyes of the Gods, OId or New, the way that kinslaying or incest between direct family was. The thought of serving men on platters still set the Northman’s stomach to queasiness, though. He was thankful that his tribe had never been forced to that last resort, in the long winter that followed his exile.

The fact that these two probably ate from those pots every _day_ … something in Jon’s heart hurt at the thought. Not just them; how many people living in Flea Bottom subsisted on the stuff?

Jon slowly crouched down to the ground in front of them, reached into his coinpurse with two fingers, and drew out a single gold dragon for the both of them to see. Their eyes nearly popped out of their heads at the sight. “Where are your mother and father?” he asked.

“Don’t ‘ave any.” the boy replied, never taking his gaze off the coin. Jon held back the wince. He reached forward, and when Aedrick held out his hands reverently, he placed it gently into his hands. “I never seen a whole gold coin before.” he whispered. “Seven blessin’s on you, m’lord.”

_Is this what the South truly is? If men were allowed to live like this in the North, they would be the first to freeze in the winter. And they have an entire block of people like this._

Jon pinched another gold coin between his fingers and held it out to the girl. She rushed forward and snatched it, cradling it to her chest like a precious thing, as if it would run away if she didn’t protect it. Jon chuckled, sadly. “I won’t take it back from you, you know.”

“It’s nothin’ on you, m’lord. Teia’s been proper mad since the fat man didn’t show up with her favorite sweetmeats-” the girl, Teia, immediately kicked her brother in the shin. “OW! Hells! See what I mean, ser!?”

“It’s not fair!” Teia shouted. “He ALWAYS shows up, and he _didn’t_! Something is wrong and nobody knows nothin’!”

Her bottom lip trembled, and so Jon hesitantly reached out a gloved hand to her shoulder. “Why do you think your fat man is in trouble?” he asked. “Tell me about him.”

“He -” she hiccuped. “He’s fat, an’ he’s bald, an’ he always smells nice, like flowers.” Jon stiffened. “An’- an’ he asked me to stand outside the house where Dancy works, an’ to listen if anybody was lookin’ for a baby.”

“A baby?” Jon repeated.

Teia nodded vigorously. “Uh-huh. An’ if they were lookin’ for a baby - cuz it’s probably little Barra, Mhaegan’s baby - I gotta remember their faces, an’ if they got any pictures on their clothes. An’ then, he visits every fortnight, and I tell ‘im if anybody was looking for a baby at the house Dancy works at, an’ he gives me sweetmeats an’ a whole stag, but he didn’t show up three days ago, an’ I know he’s in trouble an’ now we gotta go back to pickpock’in’ an’ he just stepped on my throat an’ my tummy hurts an’-” Teia broke into a wailing sob, arms hanging limply at her sides.

“... And was that house the one I was in front of, when you stole from me?” Jon asked, quietly. Teia nodded without interrupting her wailing.

The analytical side of Jon’s mind - and that was the only side he wanted to acknowledge at the moment, because he didn’t want to consider the fact that he had just murdered the only chance at rightful employment these children would likely ever have - noted with a clinical interest that if Varys was watching a whorehouse for anybody after a baby named Barra, then the King had at least two bastards in the capital. He hadn’t the faintest clue if that was the end of it.

Jon slowly opened his arms a little wider, and Teia run forward, and wrapped her thin coltish arms around his neck like a noose as she began to wail wordlessly, directly into his ear. Aedrick, off to the side, was moodily kicking a rock back and forth.

_Summer children, the both of them. Did they survive the decade-long winter that came to Westeros? Or did they even make it that far, with all the horrors that were visited upon King’s Landing?_

Jon let her cry into his shoulder for some time, before gently prying her arms off of him. “Where do you live?”

“We… we found a cellar that nobody uses.” Aedrick answered. “‘S alright, but we gotta make sure it looks like we ain’t in there. Nobody finds us when we’re sleepin’, then.”

_We will Break the Wheel together._

A full-body flinch passed through Jon’s body. He hadn’t been haunted by that voice since the day he first held Lyan in his arms.

“... Can you take me there?” Jon asked, quietly. “I would be glad to see you off safely.”

Aedrick nodded, rapidly. “Okay, m’lord. It’s down the road a ways.”

Jon tried to stand, but Teia clutched harder at the neck of his cloak, pouting. With an amused scoff, Jon reached down, gripped her by the hips, and lifted the small girl who trusted a stranger far too easily into his arms. Now properly positioned, she nuzzled deeper into the crook of his neck and hid her face entirely.

 _She can’t be much younger than Ragnald. He was never the cuddlebug of the two, though; he always wanted to be running about after Ghost’s heels._ Thinking about his son made his heart ache.

“C’mon, this way!” Aedrick shouted, running forward. Jon tromped after him, exaggerating the bounce of his step. Teia was giggling into his shoulder by the time they exited the side-street, practically jumping up and down in his grip independent of the silly walk.

The three of them had passed more than a dozen intersections when Jon saw a bright flash of gold through the shoulders of the crowd. He froze. “Wait.” he called out; Aedrick continued on for nearly a few more steps before stopping, and scurrying back to the teenager’s ankles. He lowered Teia to the ground, crouching as he did. Through the legs of the Flea Bottom crowds, another flash of gold was seen; it swished about, on fabric, and on far more than he saw from above.

“Get your little sister out of here.” Jon hissed.

“But-!” Aedrick began.

“Now.” he pushed the girl into her brother’s arms. “Do as I say.”

“I don’t wanna!” Teia protested, but Aedrick seem to see that Jon was serious, and after a few moments grabbed her by her wrist and pulled her to the side. “No! Lemme go! Nooooooo!”

Jon stood back up, making sure that his hood was securely over his face, before turning on his heel-

The streets behind him were already blocked off by the Gold Cloaks. A dozen men, at least, blocking off the path he had just trod. Behind one, an old woman - the very first crone he saw minding a pot of brown - was pointing directly at him.

“Others take me.” Jon cursed, quietly. Behind him, he could hear the clatter of armaments that signified the main routes being blocked off. He was surrounded. He flicked his cloak to the side, and revealed his blade to all. He slowly inched his hand towards it -

“Jon Snow!” a voice called out from behind him. Jon stiffened. It was the voice of a dead man. He slowly turned around, and saw none other than Janos Slynt, commander of the city watch. He had pushed himself ahead of the line of gold cloaks that barricaded the road, and though he held the city watch’s spear in his hands, it was gripped loosely, and his longsword was still in his sheath.

“You are surrounded, and are a wanted man.” Janos continued, his jowls wobbling underneath his beard as he spoke. “Yet we are not unreasonable. Let your blade remain sheathed, and none need be harmed today.” and then, looking directly into Jon’s eyes, Janos actually winked.

Jon’s eyes narrowed. With the man’s helm on, it would only have been visible if you were looking directly at his face, as Jon was. It meant _something_ , but he had not the faintest idea what. All he knew of Janos Slynt was a general sense of corruption, and that he had hated him for his bastardy at the Wall with an unusual vehemence.

Jon slowly straightened, and lowered his hand away from the hilt of his blade. Janos, seeing the threat alleviated, walked forward with a brisk pace, and grabbed him roughly by the forearm. “Well done, bastard.” Janos murmured for only them to hear, as he walked around to his back. “There shall be a show of arrest, but within the sennight you shall easily escape the black cells, I think.”

Jon’s eyes widened, even as Janos himself began marching him roughly out of Flea Bottom. “Why?”

“Why, indeed.” Janos replied. The Gold Cloaks fell in around their commander. “You have made powerful friends at court with your actions, bastard. Lord Varys was not a well-loved man. Why, when we searched his room we even found evidence of traitorous loyalties, hidden behind secret panels.”

Jon sucked in a sharp breath.

“Though you have broken the law, in doing so you have done the realm a great service.” Janos continued, softly. “The Small Council has therefore decided on leniency.”

Jon stilled his mind. “And when I pray to the gods tonight in thanks, whose name shall I offer to them for blessings?” he replied.

Janos laughed, a sharp, ugly thing. “Littlefinger is in little need of the blessings of bastards, but I shall tell him of your appreciation.”

 _Littlefinger. Petyr Baelish._ Jon’s stomach dropped out. _Sansa once said that only a fool trusted him. If Baelish is well-pleased with the death of Varys, then I have made a grave mistake._ Now Jon could see the reasoning. If Varys was a counterweight to Littlefinger’s schemes, whatever they were, then killing him had just freed a devious man from constraints. Freeing Jon, in the meanwhile, created a gross embarrassment to Ned Stark; the new Hand of the King had a son who murdered one of his father’s Small Council, roaming free. The scandal would cripple his power.

 _I am a great fool._ He gritted his teeth. _I will not make this mistake again._

They crossed out of Flea Bottom proper, and the bells of King's Landing [began to toll the noonday chime](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mByDcrNSV0), when Janos made a loud, strangled cry and released Jon from his grip. Jon whirled around, to see Janos Slynt standing upright as if being drawn from both end with fish hooks. "What...!? No...!" Janos half-screamed. "Get out...!"

His throat flexed wildly, and his limbs shook wildly, stuck in the middle of a seizure. “Others take me…!” Jon hissed.

"Get out...! I won't...! I won't...!" Janos screamed. With his arms still shaking uncontrollably, the Gold Cloak commander reached up to his own neck. "I won't... let you... Take me...!" 

Janos then grabbed himself by the scalp and the chin, and snapped his neck snapped to the left, beyond the range a man could twist it on it's own. He stood there, with his own neck broken with his eyes rolling wildly, as the gold cloaks surrounding him began to shout and brandish their weapons at Jon, as if he had something to do with it.

Jon did not even move an inch, watching Janos' eyes. He was still alive, even as his control over everything below the neck was lost. his eyes were trembling, even as his arms fell limp... and then they flashed white. 

“ **An admirable, but futile resistance.** ” A deep, rumbling voice came from Janos’ mouth that did not belong to him. Jon’s eyes went wide with horror, as Slynt twisted his broken neck back around to face forward. His head lolled onto his shoulder, and his eyes were pure white. " **I have found you.** "

_The Three-Eyed Raven._

Jon leapt backwards, immediately drawing his sword. “What have you done!?”

“ **Your magics cannot hide you from me anymore.** ” Impossibly, Janos' body responded as if it didn't belong to a tetraplegic, and stood straight. The Three-Eyed Raven drew Janos’ longsword, and the stance he took was that of a master. “ **The Stark named you; Now that I have seen your face, I will hunt you forever. The Ink Is Dry, R’hllor.** ”

The Three-Eyed Raven lunged, with blazing fast speed. Jon parried three whistling lunges at his heart, and two slashes at his throat, before scrambling further away. The Three-Eyed Raven wouldn’t allow it, and twisted the blade to plunge at his face. Jon slapped the longsword away, but not before it cut a long red furrow from cheek to ear.

“ **You shall not subvert the planning of eons.** ” intoned the Three-Eyed Raven; his head had not left his shoulder once through the fight. “ **Die, and return my Sight to me.** ”

“HELP ME!” Jon shouted, as a flurry of attacks so fast it seemed to come from four directions at once were desperately avoided. “THAT’S NOT SLYNT! HELP ME!”

One of the Gold Cloaks shouted courageously, and charged forward with a spear at the Three-Eyed Raven’s back. He whirled, and almost contemptuously slashed three times, once to deflect the blow, once to sever the hands, and once to slash the neck. The Gold Cloak fell to the ground even as the Three-Eyed Raven blocked another slash from Jon.

Jon roared, clashing blades with the Warged Janos again and again. The Three-Eyed Raven parried the blows all easily, and shifted the tempo once more against the northerner. More and more, the attacks were deflected at the last moments, and wounds flowed freely, while Janos’ body had yet to even be blooded.

A sudden flash of inspiration took Jon, and as he slapped the Raven’s blade away, he reached up across his blade to grab it by the fuller once again. As the Raven went to end him once again, Jon caught his enemy’s blade along the edge, and it bit into the metal crossguard. Jon twisted the sword in his hands, and now the Raven’s guard was wide open. He lunged with the tip-

Without any warning, the tip was deflected, and the move reversed on him. The Raven flicked his sword free, and Jon raced to reposition himself-

A moment of white-hot pain.

Darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love my boy Varys, but you know I had to do it to em.
> 
> I didn’t even realize we were all taking a trip to Papa Jon’s (no pizza) until I was halfway into creating those little urchins. That’s alright, though. I already knew you hoes were calling him daddy- okay, I’ll stop now.
> 
> I had a big ol’ soliloquy written out about what really went wrong with the ending of the show and how it related to the books, but it was really long and made the author’s notes seem real preachy, so I moved that rant to the next chapter. Instead, let’s focus on this story. Jon just got slap-boxed by his general lack of knowledge that The Game even exists, plus not being as good of a swordsman as he thinks. At least Ned made it through the better part of a year as Hand; Jon didn’t even last a fortnight in King’s Landing. Let’s see what he does next… in a little bit. 
> 
> I’m gonna take it a little bit slower on the next life, because I don’t have too much of it planned out yet. Give it a little bit of thinking before I write, so you’re not gonna get more ‘6000+ word chapters written in a week’ energy like the rest of this has been. (I've also been neglecting my other story I have on FF.net, but that's another matter entirely.)
> 
> Y'all are really helping me blow this thing up, huh? Thanks a bunch for reading and supporting a guy who just wants to be a sneaky bastard by not even tagging his pairings in advance.


	5. Life Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon goes on the offensive.

When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed beneath his back, his hand was moving before his mind fully realized they no longer gripped a sword, and smashed his fingers against the wall. “Agh!” he hissed, and clutched his hand tight enough to whiten the flesh. He blinked twice, looked over to his side, and saw Robb still asleep in his bed. 

Jon face twisted in fury, and punched the air multiple times before flopping back into his bed. He was back, once again. “Seventy days…” he murmured. Seventy days before Ghost was born. Seventy days before that Night’s Watch deserter, whose name had fled him after all the years, was executed. Seventy days before Winterfell learned that the Hand of the King had died, and that King Robert was travelling north to see his father. 

Jon grimaced. Seventy days was a great deal of time, and yet not nearly enough. Seventy days allowed him enough room to cross the entirety of Westeros with a small band, or sail across the Narrow Sea and potentially reach any of the Free Cities, before his father was ever named Hand. Hells, Seventy days allowed him ample time to ride to King’s Landing and potentially prevent Jon Arryn’s death, and keep Ned Stark in the north, where he belonged.

_But none of it matters if the Three-Eyed Raven is out for my blood._

Never before had he ever seen somebody Warg into a human being. Jon hadn’t even thought it was possible, until Janos had broken his own neck struggling against the invader. _Perhaps there is some kind of ironic retribution here; now Slynt and I have both killed each other while we pleaded for mercy._

Now that he knew it was possible, there was nowhere in the whole of Westeros that was safe from him. Perhaps nowhere in the known world, if this legend from beyond the Wall could reach even into Essos. Jon glanced over at Robb, still asleep even as the morning sun filled the room. Jon flexed his fingers - 

And pulled himself back, a disgusted look on his face. _No. No, that’s not right. If I was in as grave a danger as that, I would have woken a dozen times already with Robb’s hands around my neck._ Jon pushed himself out of his bed, already fully dressed - just what exactly had he done, the night before his rebirth, that he fell asleep without taking a scrap of clothing off? - and quickly made his way out of the family wing.

It took him several circuitous routes through the castle, in order to not cross paths with a single person, but eventually, Jon had collected a medium-sized hunting knife, a fur-lined bedroll, a pair of flintstones, an armful of firewood and several packaged rations of food. With his supplies in hand, Jon stole out of the keep and made his way to the First Keep, which had not been used for centuries. The doors to the abandoned structure were the pale white of Weirwood, and so the rot of centuries of neglect would never take them, but the hinges were all but rusted shut, and squealed loudly as he pushed through. 

The drum tower was covered in dust, and was just as cold as the air itself; one of the reasons it had been abandoned was the main keep being fitted with the central piping from the hot springs. Jon followed the stairs downwards, into the bowels of the dormant Hypocaust. The lumber-intensive heating chamber was empty of any fuel in-between the numerous pillars of stone tiling that reached from the floor to the stone ceiling, and insulated well, to force the hot air into the evenly-spaced brass pipes and through the drum tower’s walls. Heating their home from the hot springs was much cheaper; the Wolfswood had nearly doubled in size since the day they stopped foresting it to feed the kiln, over three centuries ago.

Jon quickly lit a fire, in between the stacked pillars of the room, and set out his bedroll. As the Hypocaust was a small, cramped place, the air heated quickly. Jon sighed, and set his hunting knife to the side, and stared into the crackling fire. 

“What am I doing?” he said aloud. He didn’t need another person to answer that; he already knew he was hiding from an implacable foe. It was the _why_ of it that remained a mystery. Running from impossible enemies was not his way, and yet Jon could not be bothered to care, for the moment. He simply huddled closer to his fire, and kept a hand on his knife at all times. 

 

* * *

 

He stayed in the bottom-most level of the First Keep for three days, venturing out only when the moon was high to plunder more wood. Jon did little else during that time but stare deep into the fire, and dream of the life that had been taken from him by a foreign god. Dreams of Val, of her fierce acerbic wit matched with a crooked smile she only showed to him that could drive him to depravity in seconds. Dreams of Lyan, his sweet, golden girl who loved freely and had charmed Ghost from the moment he saw her. Dreams of Ragnald, so fierce and brave, and had the talents of a Warg since he was only three. 

He did not want to be in Winterfell anymore. This was the home of his childhood, but he was no longer a child in his heart. His home lay even further North, and it had been stripped from him more permanently than a flensing knife carving his flesh. 

Upstairs, on the first floor of the First Keep, the squealing of hinges drew him back from his memories. “Jon?” a voice called. Jon stiffened; he knew that it would be obvious the First Keep was lived in, by the very nature of the central heating elements. “Jon, are you there?” the tromp of boots, and then a pause. The man then turned, and moved down the stairs, until the weathered, worried expression of Eddard Stark was visible from where Jon sat. 

Jon did not trust himself to speak, the way his heart was suddenly pounding in his throat. Ned must have seen something in his expression, for his expression weakened, and he crouched down slightly to work his way through the tile pillars of the Hypocaust. “Are you alright, Jon?” he asked, quietly. “Have you been here this whole time?”

Jon silently nodded, and shifted slightly to grip the handle of his hunting knife. 

Ned glanced down at the weapon hand. “Is something wrong?” he asked, worry permeating his face as he took a small step towards Jon. “Has someone in Winterfell-”

“Come no closer.” Jon lifted the hunting knife off the ground, holding it to his side in preparation for a lunge. Ned immediately backed off, gape-mouthed, eyes suddenly full of fear. “Are you unarmed?”

“I- yes, I am unarmed. Son, what is wrong-”

“I’m not your son.” Jon replied automatically. Ned instantly grew still, and Jon mentally kicked himself for his loose tongue. He had been trying to avoid this emotional bloodletting since the moment he first woke up, but now it was out in the air.

“Jon… it doesn’t matter what anybody says. You are a Stark. You are of my blood.”

“You know as well as I do,” Jon replied wearily, “that just because those two things are true does not make me your son. I know who my mother is, and where she is buried in the crypts.”

Ned Stark unsteadied himself and fell backwards, his back slamming against one of the tile pillars that held up the ground floor. “I… I…” his eyes flicked down to the knife held at Jon’s side. “I swear by the Old Gods, Jon, I never meant to hurt you. I wanted to protect you.”

Jon tracked his eyes to the knife and kicked himself again, before setting the thing far aside. “I know. You are still the one that I honor in my heart, Nuncle.” Jon felt dirty even saying those words, like admitting the truth out loud erased the good of the past. “I am not angry at you. I simply…” he sighed.

Ned looked lost, and somewhat like he wanted to retch from sheer panic. “What? What is wrong? Please, let me help.” he made to scoot himself further, but Jon picked up the knife once again, and he immediately backed off. “I thought you said -”

“It’s not you.” Jon gestured with the knife away from himself, and Ned slowly backed away. “I do not…” he hummed an irritated note, before fixating back on the crackling fire. “I am… I am being hunted, by a thing that can wear the skins of others like a cloak. Even humans.”

Ned stilled. “What? That’s not…” his brow furrowed. “Are you speaking of a Warg? Those are just stories, Jon.”

Jon shook his head. “It’s not a Warg; Wargs cannot inhabit any higher order than beasts. He is to Wargs what Wargs are to men.” he pinched his eyes shut. “It matters not if you believe me, it is true all the same. He is called the Three Eyed Raven, and though he is somewhere far beyond the Wall, he can strike me down whenever I am at my most vulnerable.”

“But that is…” Ned began, before shutting his mouth. Jon said nothing, as it was clear Ned had more to say. A long moment passed before the Lord of Winterfell spoke again, and his voice was low and intentional. “Have you seen this?”

“Seen?” Jon echoed.

“Your…” Ned grimaced. “Bloodline. They were well known for the gift of prophecy. Have you seen this Three-Eyed Raven in… dreams?”

Jon’s eyes widened, just slightly, before nodding. “Aye. That is close enough to the truth of it. I have seen the Three-Eyed Raven kill me in three different ways; the most recent was through the body of a man.” 

Ned said nothing but backed even further away from Jon, who favored him with a thankful smile in return. “Can he be killed?”

“... I believe so.” Jon frowned. “In one of - my visions, I was led to believe that he had died, and his… name? Title? Had passed to another of similar power. So he can be-”

_A sword plunged into his gut. “You were right the whole time!” the sword shifted upwards, and his eyes burned white._

Jon’s eyes shot wide open. “Oh… oh Gods, no... “

“What?” Asked Ned, though he did not move any closer. 

“It wasn’t a title. It wasn’t a title at all.” Jon breathed. That sweet, adventurous boy who wanted to believe he was a man grown at seven, and the cold, emotionless man in a wheeled chair… “It was him, all along. It was him, wearing Bran’s skin, and none of us saw it.”

“Bran!? What has happened? Is Bran in danger?”

Jon threaded his fingers through his hair. They had welcomed Bran into their midst with open arms. None of them questioned anything he said, questioned his powers. None questioned _anything_ about what he said, or did, or why the Others were so intent on killing him. Bran had - 

Jon’s heart stopped. Bran had _become King_. 

“JON!” Ned shouted, and now the Lord of Winterfell was right in front of him, grabbing him by the shoulders. “What has happened?”

Jon swallowed. “When - When a Warg dies,” he said, softly, “if they have the chance, they can pass their minds to one of their animals, and can live on in that new body. But the Three-Eyed Raven can skinchange into men, and Bran has power cut from the same cloth. He went to him, beyond the Wall, and-”

_“Look at you. You’re a man.”_

_“Almost.”_

“And he took him.” Jon whispered, horrified. “He took Bran. He took Bran, and not one of us suspected a thing.” _Just like Orell and his eagle._

Ned’s face was pale. “Bran… Bran was taken by the Three-Eyed Raven, in one of your dreams?”

Jon nodded. “And he -” his eyes narrowed. Black began to speckle the fringes of his vision, as the fire cracked loudly. “He banished me, beyond the Wall, along with the rest of the Free Folk. And we went willingly, though a decade-long winter was upon us, and they had fought to reach the southlands for millennia. We went, and not a one of us ever attempted to cross back over again, even when the ice froze too thick to cut through to fish, and even the volcanic greenery of the valley of the Thenns grew too cold for plants. None of us even TRIED.”

“You think the Three-Eyed Raven did something to you, in this dream?” Ned asked, his eyes narrow, and the color of flint.

“He MUST have.” Jon snarled, gripping the handle of his hunting knife hard enough for the wood to creak. “Only one of every three of our clan survived that winter. I watched men starve to death so that their children could eat. I watched babes live for only hours before the cold took them. I watched my people die like RATS. We were nearly driven to CANNIBALISM when even the animals died of the cold.” 

He flung the knife into the small stack of wood, and the blade stuck at a crooked angle. “And not ONCE did any of us even think to cross to warmer lands, with a gaping hole in the Wall and not a single man garrisoned against us. Tormund fought his entire LIFE to cross that Wall, and not ONCE did he even suggest going back South.”

Ned remained silent.

“He banished me.” Jon pushed himself to his feet, but remained hunched over. “He banished me because of my blood, so not a single person could look to me as a claimant. I didn’t want it - I DIDN’T WANT IT!” 

His fist rocketed outwards, and the punched tore through a pillar of stacked tiles, scattering stone fragments across the floor. “What is the South to me, but a pack of perfumed vipers and disloyal schemers? I’ve only ever wanted the North - ever since I was a child, I wanted to be Lord of Winterfell, but I loved Robb like a brother! I would have thrown that crowd of swords they handed me into a furnace if it meant that none of us had ever been forced to go below the Neck!”

“How many…” Jon’s voice failed him, just for a moment. “How many decisions were made that were not truly ours? How many failures happened, how many men died... because a man could make us fail in just the right manner from a thousand miles away?”

Ned’s hands curled deeper into Jon’s shoulders, before he pulled the boy into a fierce hug. Jon was stunned, for a moment, before wrapping his arms around him, and squeezed tightly. 

Neither said anything, for at least a minute, before Ned pulled back. “So when are you leaving?” Ned asked, voice low.

“Leaving?” Jon repeated.

“To find this three-eyed craven and gut him.” 

 

* * *

 

[It took them only a day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17xXLfIOzxE) to covertly gather all of the supplies they required for the journey. Jon had impressed an abundance of paranoia onto the Lord of Winterfell, and Ned had obliged; neither of them could rightly say what the Three-Eyed Raven was capable of, if he could wear the skins of men, and whether Janos breaking his own neck struggling against him was normal or not. Caution and secrecy was their watchword.

Eventually, the two of them rode together from the Hunter’s Gate in secret, with Jon’s supplies split between their horses. Jon was dressed in dark greys and browns, and had a castle-forged steel sword at his hip. He could not tell whether or not it was the same sword he had worn in his last life; he imagined, fancifully, that it was.

The two of them rode for several hours, until the Wolfswood began to draw into sight on the horizon, and Ned pull himself to a stop on his destrier, with Jon following suit. “This is as far as I can go,” he said. “I only wish it were possible to send a retinue with you.”

“You know well why I must travel alone.” Jon replied.

“Aye.” Ned nodded. “If the Raven turns a single man against you in the night, it could spell doom. Knowing that doesn’t make me worry any less about you riding North alone.” He vaulted himself off of his horse, and began slowly transferring the packs from one beast to another; Jon did the same with somewhat less grace, as his riding skills had atrophied beyond the wall. “Do you have a plan?”

“I do not.” Jon admitted. “I did not know this man even existed until…” he grimaced. “Bran mentioned him as his mentor.” 

“And by then, it was not Bran any longer.” Ned said, quietly. “The man was boasting, in a way only he would understand.” 

“He won’t be boasting when I find him.” Jon vowed. “I know the lands beyond the Wall as well as I know Winterfell. He will not escape me.”

“Good.” Ned finished tying a hunting bow and quiver of arrows to the flank of Jon’s courser, before hesitating. “I’ve been thinking on what you said, in the First Keep.”

Jon looked at him with questioning eyes. “When you said that you wanted to be Lord of Winterfell-” Ned continued.

“A child’s fantasy,” Jon interrupted hurriedly, “a dream of a motherless son. I love Robb as much as any brother, and I have outgrown-”

“No,” Ned shook his head. “I don’t think you have. This prophetic dream has clearly matured you, but you meant those words.” Jon’s face twisted in pain. “I have not… been as good of a father as I should have, to you. I have raised you the same as my true children, and now…” Ned smiled. “Now you are almost a man grown. Both in body and in mind. And I could not be more proud of you, Jon.”

“Father…”

“I did not know Rhaegar Targaryen well in life, and so I cannot say in truth how much of himself he left in you.” Ned’s eyes grew watery. “But you look so much like Lyanna that it makes my heart ache every time I look upon you. And you have paid for my weakness, I think.” 

Jon felt himself choking up. “You have given me a better life than a bastard son could have ever asked for.” he said, thick with feeling. “You gave me a family.”

“And I would give you more.” Said Ned. “I thought to send you to the Wall to protect you from King Robert, but now I see you are worth more than that. Drive a sword through this wildling sorcerer, Jon, and come back. Do not die out in those frozen wastes protecting our family, but come back to us, and I would name you Lord of the Neck.”

Jon’s heart stopped. 

“You wanted to be Lord of Winterfell because you wanted a true home.” Ned continued. “Return to us safely, and I would give you one, in Moat Cailin. I would write to King Robert and petition him for the right of crenellation with a loan from the Crown, to rebuild that great fortress. I would grant you lands from the mouth of the Fever River to the White Knife and fifteen miles to the north and south, declare you subordinate only to the Stark in Winterfell, and gift you a thousand bannermen for your armies and smallfolk to tend your lands.”

Jon, after a moment of stunned silence, immediately dropped to a knee. “Lord Stark, I- you do me too much honor.” He stammered. Even in ruins, Moat Cailin was one of the most powerful fortresses in the North; when fully rebuilt, it would be functionally impossible to dislodge any man inside, even if the entirety of the South marched against it. And to be named the founding member of a house with lands on par with the Karstarks, the Boltons and the Manderlys? It was an honor due to an honored second son, not a bastard.

“I don’t do you enough.” Ned replied, firmly. “In a gentler world, you would have been born a prince. Now you ride off to do battle with a monster who threatens our family, on your own? All I can do is give you cause to come back to us.”

Jon’s eyes watered. He had been Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, the second King in the North since Torrhen Stark, and held a claim to the entirety of the Seven Kingdoms in his blood. How was it, then, that being granted a single ruined castle on the edge of swamplands filled him with more emotion than any other?

_Because the most honorable man I know is the one who is granting it to me._

Jon clumsily pushed himself to his feet, shaking out the cloudiness in his vision. “I - I will not fail you, Father.” 

Ned smiled, wobbly. “I want you to know that I do this for you, and not your name. You have always been Jon, my son, and never Jaehaerys.”

Jon froze. “Jaehaerys?” he repeated. “But.. I was named Aegon.”

Ned looked at Jon with an odd expression. “No. That was your half-brother. Your mother would not be so crude as to give a man two sons of the same name.” he tilted his head. “Who told you that your name was Aegon?”

Jon opened his mouth to protest - 

_“I had a High Septon’s diary, and Bran had… whatever Bran has…”_

Jon felt a chill pass through him. “... Bran told me.” he whispered. The look in Ned Stark’s eyes showed he was thinking the same thing Jon was: _Why would the Three-Eyed Raven intentionally misname Jon after his murdered half-brother?_

“... Then it is not your fault.” Ned said, finally. Jon ndded. The two stared at each other, silently.

“... In a little over two moons, you may find a direwolf mother, dead after whelping.” Jon said, softly. “There will be six pups. One will be albino; his name is Ghost.” he smiled weakly. “Take care of them, will you? One for each of the Stark children.”

Ned nodded, though his eyes showed his amazement. “I will.”

The two held the moment, for just a moment, and then Jon threw himself into Ned Stark’s arms, and held him tightly. Ned’s grip was tight against his back, and his lips were down against Jon’s scalp.

“I love you, Father.” Jon breathed. _I missed you so, so much._

“I love you, Son.” Ned whispered into his hair. “Don’t you dare die on those frozen plains.”

Jon wanted to say something more - _Don’t you dare become Hand, don’t you dare go South, don’t you dare die again when I’m hundreds of miles away_ \- But he said nothing, and merely gripped the only man he had ever called Father tighter.

 

* * *

 

Jon rode hard on the Kingsroad, hoping to waste no great amount of time reaching the wall. It had taken him twenty days, the first time he had gone to the Wall, but much of that was due to accommodating the Lannister half-man Tyrion’s inability to properly ride. Jon’s thighs were probably bruised black and purple, and the horse would have likely hated him if not for liberal use of treats, but by travelling alone he had cut the time it took to come within sight of the wall in half.

Or, rather, he would have been in sight of the wall, if a Summer blizzard had not blotted out the sky almost entirely.

Jon cursed as soon as he saw it. Summer blizzards were not unheard of in the North - certainly not as common as gentle Summer snows, but they were known to happen. They could take lands unprepared to deal with them wholly unprepared, and could last for days. When they passed, the snows could melt and reveal a crop damaged by frost, putting lesser houses without the coin to import from the Reach in danger of starvation. Even short Winters could be made dangerous by such circumstances.

This storm in particular held a size and viciousness that made Jon leery of testing it, and looked to be moving from the north and east of him. He could wait it out, but that would make him an immobile target on the Kingsroad for any bandit, and would make the Kingsroad impassable in the aftermath. 

Jon frowned. He had to race it. Not to Castle Black - he’d never make it in time. He might make it to shelter elsewhere, though. He could easily make it to Queenscrown, but that might leave him holed up in that abandoned holdfast for days -  the same problem of waiting it out on the Kingsroad. Many knew of the tower as an emergency shelter, and if anything with a pulse were to find him, they could potentially become a puppet of the Three-Eyed Raven.

_Not Queenscrown, then, or Castle Black. But what if…?_

His eyes tracked further east, to the places where the wall began to curve and wobble it’s way across the land, like a winding snake. He would be forced off of the Kingsroad, but it was possible he might be able to reach one of the abandoned forts on the Wall. Deep Lake, or even Queensgate if he arced around the storm’s trajectory well enough to avoid the leading squall. Those were the places he could be assured of solitude. 

Jon grinned, slightly. He wouldn’t be able to use those tunnels, for they would have been collapsed by the Builders when the castles were abandoned, but they would make fine refuge until the storm passed. After that, he could make his way to Castle Black, and pass through the gate there. The letter in his pocket from Ned Stark to Jeor Mormont would allow him free passage without many questions.

Jon goaded the courser into speed. If the storm kept its current pace, he had a day, maybe two, before he was caught in it. And that was not a situation he was looking to experience.

 

* * *

 

Jon shivered, rubbing frantically at the snow-wet hide of the courser as man and beast were pelted with icy winds and snow. The horse was walking slowly, and stepping through snow drifts as tall as it’s knees.

The storm had shifted as soon as it hit the Kingsroad, on the second day. Instead of tracking to the south and west, as it had been, it began rolling directly to the west. Jon had only enough time to tear open his packs and throw every scrap of clothing he owned onto himself, so that not an inch of his skin was exposed to the freezing air, before the blizzard rolled into him. That had been several hours ago.

“Come on, boy.” Jon goaded, rubbing its shoulder to try and clear the snow and reclaim warmth for the nameless horse. “Come on, not much further. Come on, stay strong. That’s it. I’ve got an apple for you if you make it to the fort for me. Come on.” 

_I should have gone to Queenscrown. I let my haste and paranoia get the better of my common sense, and now I am going to freeze to death lost in a blizzard because of it._

If he had been riding in the correct direction, he should have reached the bulge of the Wall that signalled he was close to Deep Lake, but he had not even seen the Wall since the blizzard enveloped him. Jon could only pray that he was riding in a straight line, instead of being turned around in circles. 

The horse stopped, and wobbled in place. Jon immediately jumped off, and his feet sank into a snow drift down to his knees. “Come on.” Jon pleaded, holding the horse by its reins. Without his weight on him, the horse seemed to stabilize, and began walking slowly forward. Jon could only scowl, hold a hand in front of his eyes, and walk forward. The frost would take his feet, soon, if shelter wasn’t found.

Jon and the courser trudged forward through the driving snow at least another fifteen minutes before a shade other than pure white appeared before him. Jon gasped, before pushing even harder through the snow. Slowly but surely, the ruined fort revealed itself, its towers collapsed and its yards overgrown with treegrowth. Off in the distance, a zig-zagging line of carved steps traced its way across the face of the Wall all the way to the very top.

 _This isn’t Queensgate, or even Deep Lake,_ Jon realized with a queer feeling of unease in his belly. _This can only be the Nightfort._

He had been thrown far off course if he had passed over the other forts to reach one of the most ill-omened castles in all of Westeros. It didn’t matter, though, at the moment. Anything that would put a roof over his head would serve, and though the green wood would not light easily, it might be possible to cut down branches from the plentiful trees that grew in the yard and start a fire. 

Jon pulled the exhausted horse behind him into the yard, and made towards the biggest doors he could find. The immediate choice led to what appeared to be the remnants of a great hall, but only one of the walls remained standing, leading further inwards. Jon led the horse behind him down the hall until he found another set of doors large enough to fit a horse through. When he pushed them open and led the two of them inside, it was clear that he had found the kitchen. The large, eight-sided room was filled with abandoned cooking fires and tools, with an empty well in the center. Off to the side, blood-red leaves surrounded a Weirwood tree that grew through a hole in the floor, and Jon had to wonder where it originated from if the branches reached here.

The courser limped into the kitchen, lowered itself down onto it’s knees, and flopped onto its side, shivering and twitching heavily. Jon cursed as a sympathetic shiver from the cold worked its way through him. With a hard determination, he grabbed the small woodsman’s axe from the pack on the horse’s side. A nearby chair molded from Weirwood was summarily hacked to pieces and formed into a rough square fire placement close to the horse’s belly, and a handful of red leaves stuffed underneath for the kindling. 

When the flint sparked on the leaves, and the pale fuel caught, Jon began to strip himself out of the snow-soaked clothes. Some of the outer layers were frozen solid and would not loosen their grip until he held himself uncomfortably close to the fire. Only once he was down to nothing but his smallclothes did he allow himself to sit close to the fire. The pain in his extremities as the warmth came back was a terrible burning, but it was better than to lose them to the cold. He wasn’t keen on losing three toes and an ear all over again.

He wondered how long the blizzard would last.

 

* * *

 

When Jon woke the next day, the embers of the fire were only barely smoldering, and the horse had died of exposure in the night. He felt a keen regret in his gut; the mount had died because he was too incautious, and no other reason.

Throwing off his blankets and slowly pulling on a dried layer of clothing, he set to work demolishing another weirwood chair and rekindling the fire. His fingers still tingled and ached, but he hadn’t lost feeling, which was a good sign. The tip of his left ear was swelling, though, and burned painfully. That likely meant the frost had penetrated deeper, and Jon wasn’t looking forward to the cold blisters that would likely come with it. He wouldn’t be able to tell whether he’d lose it or not without a mirror.

The blizzard was still raging outside, and the decrepit structures of the Nightfort, as large and powerfully built as they once were, still shuddered under the winds. Jon glanced about at the walls of the kitchen; they looked sturdy enough to survive the blizzard, but you never knew. He reached for the rations pack, and began to unwrap an individual bundle of brown bread, cheese and sticky honeycomb, when he glanced at the dead courser.

“... shit.” Jon rewrapped the bundle, placed it far to the side, and drew the hunting knife he had packed. The blood in the horse had already thickened from the cold as he carefully carved off a portion of shouldermeat. With a grimace, he skewered the entire portion of lean meat with his steel sword and roasted it over the fire until the outsides blackened and the juices ran clear and hot. He lifted it gingerly to his mouth, took a cautious bite, and chewed. 

“Mmm.” Jon’s face flexed in surprise. “Not bad. Could use some spices, but not bad.” it was a rich color and flavor, like beef but sweeter, and had a leaner texture to it than even chicken. He had seen many Dothraki make meals of horseflesh on the march up to Winterfell, and he was led to understand that this was their primary meat sustenance. If it was true, then the Khals and their armies were eating well.

_“Khaleesi! Khaleesi!”_

Jon’s arm spasmed, and had the slab of meat not been present, he would have slammed the flat of his own blade into his nose. Instead, his upper lip and both his nostrils were involuntarily slathered in hot juices. Jon growled, wiped away the horsejuice with his gloved hand, and forcefully cleared his mind of _her_.

He quickly finished off his meal and cleaned his sword on the mane of the dead courser. With a full belly, he covered himself with the rest of the many layers of clothes and made his way out of the kitchen. Many of the hallways of the Nightfort had collapsed since the time it had been abandoned, nearly two and a half centuries ago. The keep was massive, and Jon could only wonder at how many men must have volunteered in the past to maintain the place, in the ages before the Night’s Watch became a penal colony. 

He wandered, as he had little else to do but explore until the blizzard let up. He spent several hours ducking through collapsed barracks and abandoned training halls. The most curious thing he noted of all was the abnormally large amount of rats crawling through the ruined fort; Jon’s mind naturally drifted to the legends of the Rat Cook, and shivered. 

Eventually, he stepped through a large set of doors and into a long, massive room covered with rusted wall hooks and rotted ledges. Jon wasn’t sure what to make of it until his eyes landed on a half-destroyed shield hanging on a hook. _The armory, then._  

For as big as the room was, it must have been able to hold the weapons of thousands and thousands of men. As it was now, though, the room was almost entirely bare, and gutted with rot. That was to be expected, though; when the men of the Night’s Watch abandoned the fort, they would have attempted to take as much as they were able to carry with them to their new, more manageable location. Almost all of the armor stands had collapsed, and what little gear was left was useless.

Jon noticed, however, an extremely large cabinet at the end of the building, situated in a place of presence in the center of the wall. Mildly curious, Jon walked the long path towards it, and slowly came to realize it was made of stone, and not wood, and stood almost half-again his teenage height above his head. With a grunt, Jon pulled aside the stone doors, which slid on grooves carved into them.

Inside was a massive set of black, full-plate armor, and a greatsword that likely equaled the size of the Stark blade, Ice. both the blade and the full-plate armor, which was crested on the chest with a crow wearing a crown, wings outspread, were inscribed with runes that could only belong to the First Men up and down their lengths. The helm of the steel suit of armor was molded in the shape of a crow as well, with its wings stretching down the wearer’s face. 

Jon stepped back, to marvel in awe of the set. The armor was far too big for him to use - standing upright, it had to have been made for a man over seven feet tall, and built like a giant. Even so, neither sword nor armor showed even the slightest bit of rust or age. He had not the faintest idea why they had left such a fine set behind, other than the small likelihood they would find somebody capable of wearing it. 

He glanced about the armor cabinet, marveling, before looking at the foot of the stand. There was a bronze plaque inside of the grooves the stone doors slid on. The plaque was tarnished green with age, but the words were still legible to him. 

_Let the arms and armor of Wylis Royce ‘the Bronze Lord’ serve as a reminder of our duty. Let no man of the Night’s Watch raise arms against another, from this day until the last._

Jon stumbled back, eyes wide. Wylis Royce was the commander of the Nightfort when the Nightfort waged war upon Snowsgate. Brothers of the Night’s Watch had killed each other in open combat until the Stark in Winterfell ended the war by killing the commanders of both castles. Now that he saw the name, he could even see that the armor was wrought bronze, painted pure black.

_But that was over six centuries ago. How, by the Old gods and New, was his equipment still shining like new?_

Jon could only stare at the runes. House Royce, he had heard, placed great stock in their First Man lineage, and held that their knowledge of runic magics would create great feats in battle. Maybe there was something to it, after all. 

Regardless, Jon slowly shut the sliding stone doors and backed away. Now he fully understood why the men of the Nightfort left this behind. It was a symbol of the Nightfort’s shameful past, and the knowledge of it’s defiance of the passage of time sent a queer chill through his gut. They would not have wanted this with them at Deep Lake, regardless of worth.

Jon turned his back on the armor stand, and without further thought left it behind.

 

* * *

 

It was nearing sundown when Jon finally returned to the kitchen. The blizzard outside was beginning to weaken, and he could reasonably guess that by the next morning the wall would be safe enough to walk on to Castle Black. It wasn’t ideal, but it surely beat trudging through the new snows now that his horse had passed. 

Jon carved off another portion of the horse to eat. This time, he applied the butchery skills the Free Folk had taught him to the long and tough neckmeat. It was a more sinewy cut, but the color was rich. 

Jon absently wondered, as he skewered the flesh on his sword and held it over the rekindled fire, what the Dothraki technique of eating horse was. They had been eating the stuff for as long as they had been a culture. Surely they knew what the best cuts were and how the best ways to cook the meat were. 

_Then again, they were savages who did not even have a capital of their own._

Jon kicked himself for the thought. The Free Folk didn’t have a capital of their own, either. He had lived long enough among them to know that just because they didn’t have the knowledge of how to build long-term structures or cities did not mean they weren’t men as well. 

_Except for maybe the Ice-River clans, and anybody who learned too much from them. Thank the Old Gods that Sigorn did not take after his grandmother, the way his father did. The Thenns would never have recovered from two Magnars who listened to that crazed Ice-River harridan._

Jon snorted good-naturedly, as he slowly turned the meat over the fire. Once Sigorn had returned back to the land of the Thenns and fully assumed his role as Magnar, the proverbial god-king of the Thenns, his first order was to bring forth all the men who had scarred themselves in the way of the Ice-River clans and had grown fond of human flesh and had them executed. 

It was only then that Jon had first realized that the Thenns were not naturally cannibals, but in reality were quite sophisticated; many had reluctantly followed in the image of the Magnar Styr, but happily ended the practices as soon as his son banned them. Many of the Folk who had scarred themselves in the Ice-River fashion took to heavy tattoos in order to cover their shame.

It was a lesson that Jon took to heart, and spread to every young Free Folk man he knew. Never, ever, ever steal a wife from the Ice-River clans. Sigorn’s grandfather had done so in order to strengthen his line with far-away blood, and his entire clan paid the price for a generation when Styr had taken after his mother far too much.

_So, in truth, who is to say that the people who will not settle in one stretch of land are wrong? They may not win great wars except through numbers, but if they do not war, then who decides the correctness?_

“They do not get a choice.”

Jon’s body went through a massive involuntary spasm at the voice. Jon leapt to his feet, and spun around, eyes searching wildly. It was only after a moment that he realized that the female voice he had heard was imaginary. It was only a memory so vivid he could still see her lips move as she spoke, and her voice echoing in the halls.

It was a second later, at the ‘CLANG!’ of iron on stone, that Jon realized he had flinched so hard he had flung the sword from his hand. “NO!” Jon rushed over, but it was too late. The sword, with his hunk of half-cooked horseflesh still impaled on it, had fallen straight down the gaping hole of the well in the middle of the kitchen. “AAAAAAUGH!” he screamed in frustration. 

He hadn’t had a reaction that bad to his memories in decades. Ser Rodrik - hell, _Tormund_ would never have let him live it down if he was so startled by imaginary noises that he flung his sword across the room and down a well. “This damned Nightfort has me on edge.” He muttered. “And now I have to climb down this well to get my sword back. I’ve ruined my meal, as well.”

It was lucky enough that the walls of the well were ragged enough to climb down, he supposed. He grabbed a burning brand of weirwood from the fire and stuck it between his teeth before slowly making his way into the dark pit. It was a surprisingly deep well. He had likely climbed downwards for at least five minutes before his feet touched packed earth. There was his sword, and his horseflesh, dirty from the fall. He gripped the hilt, and slowly pushed off the ruined meat -

**_“WHO ARE YOU?”_ **

Jon screamed and whirled around, flinging his sword outwards into a fighting stance. There, set into a deeply recessed wall, was a massive pale white face, craggy and wrinkled with age, with blind eyes staring straight at him. It was the face of a weirwood tree, one of the most massive trees he’d ever seen. A weirwood tree that had just SPOKEN to him.

And the horseflesh, which he’d only just begun to push off the blade, flew off the edge of his sword and slapped right into the weirwood tree’s eye.

Jon could only stand frozen in embarrassed shock as the meat flopped limply out of the tree’s eye, down onto the bridge of its nose, and fell to the side of it’s right nostril, where it stuck in a wrinkle. It looked like the giant tree had just grown an enormous pimple on the side of its nose.

The weirwood tree didn’t react to any of the meat’s movements. It didn’t even seem to be looking at him. But Jon had heard it ask that question. There was Magic afoot, and Jon didn’t like that one bit.

“I…” He hesitated. “I am Jon Snow. Who are you?”

The tree didn’t respond. Jon waited for several moments, but nothing happened. Finally, the tree spoke once more. **_“WHO ARE YOU?”_ **

“I - I just told you.” Jon replied. “My name is Jon Snow.”

Silence. 

**_“WHO ARE YOU?”_ **

Jon bit the inside of his cheek. He was beginning to think the weirwood tree was looking for a specific answer. “I…” he sighed. “I am Jaehaerys Targaryen, Third of his Name. Rightful heir of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Silence. An especially long silence.

**_“WHO ARE YOU?”_ **

Jon growled wordlessly, and punched the air in frustration. “I ALREADY TOLD YOU!” Jon shouted. “I already told you who I am! I gave you my real name! The one I don’t want to even think about much less answer to!”

The tree didn’t answer back. It didn’t even ask the question again.

Jon scowled, before dropping to the ground to sit. His hunger was forgotten, now. Now he was pissed at a tree with a giant pink pimple on it’s nose.

“You ask a specific question, and you’re looking for a specific answer.” he said aloud. “So what am I? I am a boy raised as a bastard. I am a son of the North. I am a warrior. I am a leader of men. I am the savior of the Free Folk. I am the Queenslayer. I am the exiled prince. I am the man who dies over and over and still wakes up on the same day in the same bed no matter how long I was past that day. Any of those do anything for you?”

The tree remained silent…

**_“WHO ARE YOU?”_ **

“Fuck off.” Jon cursed. “I am the man who’s going to light you on fire. I am the man who got the first two women I loved killed. I am the man who tried to save all the living and was useless during the critical moments. I am the man who was lied to from the moment I was born. I am the man who got killed for doing the right thing. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers. I am the shield that guards the realms of men. I am-”

**_“THEN PASS, LORD COMMANDER.”_ **

“What!?” Jon leapt to his feet as the mouth of the mouth of the tree opened wide, further and further until it passed the physical limitations of a real jaw. The gaping pit grew wider and wider until there was nothing but the passage and wrinkles so deep you could barely see the white of the tree.

Jon felt a chill pass through him. _I didn’t mention during the rant that I was Lord Commander even once, but it knew all the same._ He had never once been Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch in this life, but it knew. It responded to him not as king, but as a Brother.

_The vows. It opened when I recited my vows._

And it had said he could pass… was this a secret tunnel through the Wall? How had he not known of this, at Castle Black? This was a critical failure of their records; if all it took was a brother to recite the vows only they knew, then Mance Rayder could walk up to this gate and lead his entire hundred-thousand strong army through, and none would be the wiser as to how it happened.

Jon slowly slid his sword into its sheath, and began walking down the tunnel. The brand in his hand burned low, but still lit his way well enough through the dark passage. He would see that the Gate made it all the way to the other side, and then return to his packs and collect his things.

He walked for some time, through the tunnel, until there appeared a faint light on the other side, the orange of a fading sun. Jon laughed and burst into a run towards it. He ran outside into the tall snows of the North beyond the Wall, and heard the creak of the ice above him. He was home. 

Jon sucked in a deep, calming breath, and exhaled. And then his eyes narrowed. “The Raven will not escape m-”

A body slammed into him from his blindspot. Jon flew into the ground, his impact muffled by the new snowfall. The stun only lasted for a moment, before his eyes focused. There, standing directly over him and pinning him to the ground, was a massive, full-grown male direwolf, staring at him with pure-white eyes and snarling soundlessly. 

“SON OF A-”

The possessed direwolf lunged at his throat.

Darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this has really not been a good week for me. One of my friends committed suicide on monday, I nearly gouged out my own eye by accident on tuesday, and I got the call that my grandpa was probably in his final twenty-four hours on thursday (it wasn’t, but it was such a shitty time thinking that thought that it colored everything). The fact that I got this out in such a short period of time is astounding to me. 
> 
> Jon’s really not having a good time with the Raven right now. One of these days he’ll figure out what stupid mistake he’s making that is causing his trouble, and learn how to counter it. Until then, I get to have fun.
> 
> So, yeah. I hope y’all noticed that there are some blatant attempts to fix some bad writing by D&D while also merging in some book concepts that were cut out. The Thenns aren’t cannibals; the Magnar you meet in the show just took all of the Ice-River culture that he learned from his mom and made everybody follow it. The Black Gate is back from too-expensive-for-the-CGI-budget-land. And Jon is not named Aegon, because I have to believe that Lyanna was not as crass as the Freys. Seriously, Walder Frey has like a dozen Walder Juniors, and that doesn’t even count his grandkids. 
> 
> I’m actually super excited that I learned that I can insert hyperlinks into the story, because that means that I can insert music for certain portions. I tried REALLY hard this chapter to make the music sync up to the words I was writing. I must have worked on it for days so that the Stark leitmotif crescendo would hit right at the point where the hug-rush happens. I hope it worked out that way for your reading speed.
> 
> Here’s a question I’d like you to answer in the comments. Do you like the length of the chapters that I’m putting out? I’ve been flipping about the site and I’m noticing that most of the other stories around are putting out chapters that are much shorter than I write. Is that what you guys would prefer? Or do you like my longer word-counts? Let me know.
> 
> Next chapter - Beyond the Wall. Home Sweet Home.


	6. Life Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wandering the wilds Beyond the Wall.

When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed beneath his back, he pulled himself to his feet, and cracked his fingers loudly.

“Alright, you feathery son of a bitch.” He said aloud. “If that’s the way you want to play this game.”

 

* * *

 

Jon arrived at the Nightfort, and there was not a single flurry of snow in sight.

It took him less than half a day to covertly gather the supplies that Ned had given him in his previous life and get onto the Kingsroad before they could discover he was gone. He didn’t want to go through the emotional tumult all over again by asking for Ned’s help; he might actually start to cry if he was offered Moat Cailin a second time. 

With the gift of foresight, Jon rode the courser (The same courser, in fact. He was going to have to learn the steed’s name at some point, for it was a fine mount) at a fractionally more leisurely pace. His legs were spared a portion of the bruises gained from eleven day’s hard riding, and he still arrived at the ruined castle with days to spare before the blizzard hit. 

With a smile, Jon pulled the saddle and saddlebags off of the horse, fixed a full feedbag to its neck, and slapped it on the rump. The horse kicked, but Jon was safely out of the way, and it started off at a measured trot. Hopefully, it would be onto the Kingsroad by the time the storm hit and would be found by a noble house. The brand would mark it as a Winterfell horse and see it returned; otherwise, some poor opportunistic sod was going to be marked a horse-thief and lose his head for it.

After settling all of his supplies onto his back, Jon quickly made his way through the collapsing halls and passages of the Nightfort until he reached the kitchen. With a fierce kick, he snapped off one of the legs of a weirwood chair, and wrapped it in pitch-soaked wool. He struck flint against it until the torch caught flame, dropped it down the well, and waited until it clattered against the cold ground to light his path. 

It was slower going, climbing down the walls of the well with all of his gear on his pack. Once Jon reached the ground, he picked the torch back up, and turned to the magical weirwood Gate.

**_“WHO ARE YOU?”_ **

“I am the watcher on the walls.” He recited with solemn intensity. “I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers. I am the shield that guards the realms of Men.”

**_“THEN PASS, LORD COMMANDER.”_ **

As the mouth of the Gate slowly stretched open, Jon drew his longsword from its sheath and began to slowly walk forward. Down the tunnel he walked, the weight of the Wall pressing down on the ceiling like a colossus. Eventually, the exit drew close. Jon breathed slowly, slipped the pack from his shoulders, and resettled the longsword tighter in his grip. He raced forward in a fighting stance.

There was nothing outside of the other mouth of the Gate. Jon’s head whipped around on a swivel, barely allowing himself to breath so further aid his hearing. The forest was quiet, but quiet in the manner of snow-muffled, lived-in spaces. When a direwolf was hunting a portion of forest, all the animals either fled went absolutely silent for fear of the apex predator. Only Snow Bears commanded a comparable amount of fear and respect within the natural kingdom. 

Jon scowled. He darted back inside the tunnel, slung his back over his shoulders once again, and walked back out, still brandishing his blade. An owl hooted from an indistinct position to the east. 

_ He’s not here, waiting to ambush me.  _ Jon frowned, glancing behind him. He had just exited a gaping mouth in the side of the wall, equally as pale as the weirwood tree and equally as distinct. With a grimace, he set off, crunching the snow underneath his fur-lined boots.

He didn’t understand the rhythm of the Raven’s attempted murders. The first time he had woken up, it didn’t take a full day before his murder. The next time, two days. But the time after that, he had almost lasted three full moons. Now, he was killed after little more than a sennight, but here he was again, trodding the same ground with no danger in sight. 

If he truly hated him as much as he said he did through Janos’ lips, then why was he not struck down the moment he saddled the courser headed to the Wall? 

**_Your magics cannot hide you from me anymore._ **

_ He doesn’t know I exist. _

The realization stopped Jon cold. He had always assumed, from the moment he first realized that it was the Three-Eyed Raven controlling the murderous animals, that he had instantly known that he had been cursed by the Red God to wake up over and over at Winterfell. But if he  _ didn’t  _ know, then it explained much and more.

_ And the companion to that means that he’s somehow realized I exist every single time. _

A fierce light bloomed in Jon’s eyes. The Raven didn’t find him for nearly three moons. It was possible to escape his notice for quite some time. And that meant that Jon could learn to repeat the feat on command, instead of by accident. All he had to do was discover how he was finding him.

_ And then,  _ Jon thought, as he flashed his teeth viciously,  _ he’ll never discover me before I’ve lopped his misbegotten head from his shoulders. _

 

* * *

 

The air of the lands beyond the Wall were always most still in the hour of sunrise. No animal wanted to be active before the sun had warmed the earth by at least a tiny fraction, regardless of their suitability to the cold.

A snowy white owl slowly waddled out of the hollow of a tree, and fluttered its wings on the branch. The owl spread its wings to fly, and hunt for it’s daily meal of vermin -

An arrow pierced through its breast from behind, and it fell to the ground in a puff of feathers. 

Jon slowly lowered his bow to his side, grinning slightly. “Lunch.” 

It had been two days since he had left the Wall behind, and though it still loomed in the distance, it shrank with the miles that Jon put between them. The ranger roads of the haunted forest were an open book to him; he probably knew paths that neither the Watch nor the Free Folk knew of yet, given that Jon himself had discovered them many years in the future. 

He had been ranging north-by-northwest, towards Craster’s Keep. He knew of a path across the tributary that fed into the Milkwater, at the fork of the two headwaters. An old tree had snapped in two across the base, during the first winter of his exile, and had crashed to perfectly wedge into a cliff on the opposite side; they were still making use of that as a bridge at the very day he last went to sleep. The tree wouldn’t have collapsed yet, but that was why Jon had brought a woodsman’s axe. It would save him at least a fortnight of travel, likely more, compared to the conventional ranger roads.

Jon quickly made his way to the fallen bird of prey and looped a cord of rope around its talons, before hooking it to his pack. Owls were not necessarily the best source of meat, given how scrawny they were underneath their absurd pile of feathers; They were much preferred as companions for skinchangers. Jon had learned to not be picky, though.

If he was positioned where he thought he was, then he had another ten miles to trek before he could be confident in starting a fire to cook his mid-day meal. He wanted to be at the river on the inside of a sennight, to properly give time to creating the bridge. He wasn’t sure where the Raven was situated, but he had an inkling that he was in the northern half of the haunted forest. If he was hiding anywhere south of the Milkwater, the Night’s Watch would have found him by now. 

Jon slapped off the snow on his gloves and was in the process of resettling the bow to the side of his pack when he noticed the silence of the forest. It was utterly silent, save for the wind running through the canopy so thick that neither light nor snow reached the ground. He swallowed to wet his suddenly-dry throat, and drew his longsword as silently as possible. 

He had traveled further north for another twenty minutes, using all the silent-moving skills he had practiced for two decades, before a loud howl broke the silence. It was close - far too close for comfort. Jon readied his blade in a fighting stance -

A second howl joined the first. 

Jon immediately sheathed his blade and threw himself at the bark of a tree, scrambling upwards. With a quick hand, he thrashed the cord on the dead owl about until the carcass came loose, and it dropped into the snows with a heavy plop. The bulk of his backpack made climbing a dangerously cumbersome task, but he wrapped his hands and legs around a thick branch and pulled himself up into the canopy.

Jon heard the pair of padding footsteps all too clearly, in the unnatural silence of the haunted forest. From out of the shadows stalked the very direwolf that had ripped out his throat, a massive male almost as large as a destrier, and nearly pitch-black in its coloring except for white streaks along it’s muzzle. 

It stalked right up to Jon’s tree, and the dropped owl, without any fear whatsoever. It stared him right in the eye and growled, as if daring him to complain about stealing his prey. All he could do in response was attempt to let his body hang loose as possible without falling, and averted his eyes; Ghost had taught him that his kind were incredibly perceptive to those signals.

After some amount of posturing, the direwolf male grabbed the owl by the head and carried it away, without eating. Jon watched him go, and his eyes widened. 

On the boundary of his vision, a second direwolf paced, limping slightly. It was smaller than the male, with dark grey and brown colorings, and its belly slightly swollen. Jon recognized the beast.

The male dropped the owl in front of the female, and licked the other’s muzzle gently. The female quickly snapped up the owl, nearly swallowing it whole in three bites before chuffing in what sounded to Jon like gratitude. 

The breeding pair took off at a relatively fast pace, with the male hovering protectively around the female as she limped along. Only after they had disappeared into the forest, and the sound of their pawsteps had faded, did Jon slowly lower himself out of the tree. The two had been headed towards the southwest, where the Wall ended and the gorge under the Bridge of Skulls began. 

_ What happened, to give that female her limp? And what had happened to that male, so that he wasn’t there twice-over when she gave birth to Ghost’s litter? _

He stared after them, for a time, before shaking his head. Trying to stalk a direwolf seemed a deathwish to him. They were going in almost exactly the opposite direction as him, to boot. He would leave that tale a mystery, for now. 

Jon resettled his pack correctly, and filled his hand with the hunting bow once more. He needed to catch lunch all over again.

 

* * *

 

THWACK!

THWACK!

THWACK!

Jon leaned backwards, wiping a furred glove across his brow and panting slightly. He was nearly ready to strip a layer of clothing off him and let the chill of the afternoon air cool him. But after nearly two hours of careful ax-work, his bridge was ready to fall. 

With a grin, he walked around to the face-up side. Holding up two fingers to check the alignment of the wedge, he nodded. He set the ax down, breathed deeply, and roared as he stomped mightily into the tree.

The last bit of wood holding the tree upright snapped, and it began to fall. The triangular wedge he had hacked out of the tree guided it’s fall, and it toppled across the flowing Milkwater, wedging itself in-between a cleft of the cliff on the opposite side of the river. 

Jon whooped in victory. It was a perfect tree-fall. With a swift sling of his pack across his shoulders, Jon stepped lightly onto the rough bark and walked point-toed across the makeshift bridge. The Milkwater rushed hard and cold underneath him, but the tree was old and thick, and Jon stared down at the bark to ensure his steady footing.

“No further!” 

Jon froze. He whipped his head up to see a pair of men, with taut bows pointed at him from across the ridge. “No further, Crow!” one of them shouted, in the Old Tongue. 

Jon slowly lifted his hands, with the woodsman’s ax still gripped in his left. “I’ve got the wrong colors for a Crow.” He replied back, in the Forest dialect. “Not enough black.”

The response stunned the both of them. “You speak the Tongue!?” shouted the other. 

Jon smirked. Clearly, they had been hoping he hadn’t understood them, and gave them an excuse to shoot him and take his gear. “I speak Mountain, Forest, Shore, Thenn and Mag Nuk, friends.” He’d never had reason to deal with the Cave-dwellers, and so he’d never bothered to learn their particular dialect of the Old Tongue. He also didn’t mention that his understanding of Mag Nuk was purely academic, given that they never found any other Giants once the first winter passed.

“But you’re a southroner!” he shouted.

“Aye, I’m southron.” Jon replied. “But the blood of Bael the Bard flows in my veins. No Free man shall have trouble with my passing.” the wind picked up, and his perch became unsteady. “Let me stand on solid ground, and we can talk.”

The first man on the left, after a moment’s hesitation, lowered his bow. The second was hissing low curses at him, but Jon was already scrambling up and across the tree, until he finally was on solid stone once again. “Thank you.” Jon nodded, and fixed the woodsman’s ax to the loop of his pack. 

“Just because you speak the Tongue doesn’t mean we trust you.” the second replied, who hadn’t unstrung his bow yet. “You say you’re not a crow, but the only men that come here from the South are crows. Why are you here?”

Jon glared at him. “That’s none of your concern.”

“I’m MAKING it my concern.” 

“Fyodor, the man gave his word to give no trouble.” the first man said lowly. 

“Shut up, Virkyn.” Fyodor snapped, his dark unibrow furrowed in anger. “Bad enough we’ve got the Mance’s men sniffing about and  _ his _ Shadowcat ranging nearby, now we’ve got fucking kneelers. I’m done with this shit.” he lifted the bow and pointed it at Jon’s head. “Last chance. What are you doing here?”

Jon’s fist clenched - black speckled his vision. “Lower that bow unless you intend to die.” 

“Fuck you.” 

Jon was already moving when Fyodor loosed the arrow, ducking low and slamming a fist into his gut. His off-hand slammed into the wildling’s face, and as the older man staggered, Jon grabbed him by the front of his furs and bodily hurled him to the side.

Fyodor staggered only twice before momentum carried him off the cliff’s edge. His startled scream echoed for only a moment before the loud splash of his body hitting the surface of the Milkwater, carrying him away underneath the currents. Even if he got out from underneath the tide, the cold would take him in minutes.

Jon turned, fists raised, to see the first man, Virkyn, pointing his bow at Jon’s face, arrow taut. He noted, with the absent clarity that comes to a man staring death in the face, that the black-haired wildling was missing the pinky finger on his right hand. “You got a fucking problem with that?” Jon growled, readying himself to leap out of the way.

Virkyn held his position for a long moment. An owl hooted, and the soft splashing of Fyodor struggling against the river faded. Finally, he loosened the string and lowered the weapon. “Nah. Fyodor was a cunt. Made eyes at my wife.” 

Jon didn’t respond, but he slowly unclenched his fists, and let his anger dissipate like steam.

“Doesn’t mean he was wrong, though.” he continued. “What are you doing here in the North?”

Jon frowned. He hadn’t been intending on telling anybody what he was doing. It might be some time before he found where the Three-Eyed Raven was hiding, though, and emergencies happened. 

After a moment of waffling, he sighed. “I’m here to kill a man.” 

Virkyn’s expression turned frosty. “And which man is that?”

“A skinchanger. A powerful one.” he replied. The way that Virkyn’s eyes narrowed told him that it was a dangerous answer. “One that has made a habit of wearing human skins.”

The wildling’s eyes shot open. “Children preserve us. In that case, you’re welcome to our table. Not a man alive would try and stop you.”

“You’ll have to forgive me for refusing guest right.” Said Jon. “The skinchanger has taken over men I encountered to attack me.”

Virkyn cursed. “Then we’ll all sup with our weapons on the table. Fucking skinchangers…”

 

* * *

 

The village that Virkyn led him to was a cluster of five unmortared houses and a weak stockade, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the river. The place was named, uncreatively, Cliffsedge. Jon vaguely remembered the village as long-abandoned by the time spring broke, when they first discovered the new bridge. Now it was home to half-a-dozen families, and more single hunters.

Virkyn had half of a building to himself and his family, with the other half shared between three wandering Free Folk. Fyodor had been one of them, and had roomed with them for a month. Jon learned that while he was a skilled marksman, he was not well-liked. Virkyn’s woman, Baely, and their two daughters, Ynga and Velma, thought him a lech.

Jon was careful to keep a wall at his back while he was with them, and his sword remained strapped to his side. Even with this, the family welcomed him with only the customary level of suspicion, and shared with him roasted goat with spices, and a beer so thin it was almost see-through, and nearly tasteless. 

Once more Jon told them that he sought to kill a skinchanger, and once more they reacted strangely until he specified, without naming his foe, that the Three-Eyed Raven had stolen the bodies of humans. This time, Jon did not restrain himself. 

“Why is it that my task alarms you?” he asked, as he set the haunch of goat to the side.

“That’s ‘cause the Lord of Moss Hill is a warg.” the young Velma responded too quickly for her parents to give an alternate answer.

“The Lord of Moss Hill?” Jon repeated.

Baely scowled at her daughter before she responded. “A powerful skingchanger that we… give gifts to, in exchange for his protection. He defends us with the wolfpack he commands, and in return, we gift him food and clothes.”

Jon frowned.  _ Tribute for protection. That almost sounds like a proper lord. Any more southern, and they would be asking these villagers to kneel. _ “And you allow this?” 

“It’s because of him that we’re able to live here.” Virkyn answered, though saying it out loud clearly pained him. “A dozen smaller clans can survive because of him.”

“We’re not the Horn-Foots or the Thenns,” said Baely, with acid in her tone, “with the numbers to protect against the reavers.”

“We can hunt for food instead of having the women become spearwives.” pretty Ygna said, though her full lips pursed as if the idea of fighting was not entirely awful.

“So you honor this Lord of Moss Hill.” Said Jon, leaning back. “And yet, you fear him.”

“That’s none of your business.” Virkyn replied sharply. “Keep your nose out of places it don’t concern you, kneeler.”

Jon’s eyes quickly tracked around the table. His welcome had worn thin with the questioning, and his refusal to take his Guest Rights burned at the fore-front of his mind. “... Very well.” he said. “Then if you would hunt with me for a day and help me refill my packs, I won’t trouble you any longer.” 

 

* * *

 

It was Baely that joined him with a hunting bow, a well-worn thing of rough yew and a thick hemp drawstring. The brown-eyed woman was clearly the better hunter compared to her husband, and even with twenty years of experience to draw on, Jon still had to struggle to keep pace with her in his untrained body. 

“You’re not half bad, boy.” she remarked, as they stepped lightly through the snows, following a somewhat fresh elk track. “I would have expected you southron ponces to clod about and scare all the game away, but you stalk like a Free man.”

“Our people are not so different, just because of a Wall.” Jon replied, eyes still focused on the snow. “The blood of the First Men still flows in our veins, and our ways are the old ways. It’s when you travel south of the Neck that our blood grows thin.”

“The Neck?” Baely repeated, and her tone was inquisitive. 

Jon grinned. The Free Folk always loved stories of the lands beyond the Wall - he delighted many a hall with stories of Westeros that to them might as well have been from a different world. “A land of fetid swamps and flooded riverlands. The stories say that the Children raised their magics to shatter the pathway north against the invading Andals, as they had done to the Arm. But it failed them, and they merely flooded the land.” Jon’s grin turned cutting. “It worked, though. No Andal king ever made the North kneel, thanks to the Neck.”

“Still kneeled, though.” Baely smirked.

Jon side-eyed her with a cut-glass stare. “The Targaryens were not Andals. And would you have done differently, if three dragons flew North, from below the Wall?” he replied. 

“... Possibly.” 

He scoffed. “Liar. Your very name shows their reach, even here.”

Baely bristled. “I am named for Bael the Bard, the cleverest King Beyond the Wall who ever lived.”

“And where do you think he got his name from?” He replied. “The name’s styling is as Valyrian as Aegon.” 

Baely’s cheeks flushed red with anger, but as she opened her mouth to shout, a loud, wooden grinding sound cut the conversation short. The two immediately sunk into a crouch, argument forgotten, as the crept forward into the forest.

The grinding continued until they found the source. A bull elk was rubbing his antlers into the pale wood of a Heart Tree, stripping them of the last of their velvet. Jon and Baely nodded curtly at each other, drew their bows, and loosed in unison. Jon’s arrow took it in the neck, and Baely’s in the heart. It fell with a loud bellow, twitched several times in the snow, and then lay still.

Jon smiled fiercely. “That will feed me for many days. I thank you.”

“I would’ve shot him even if you weren’t here.” Baely responded, walking over to the elk. “The Old Gods are watching us through the weirwood. Most bucks are smart enough to stay well away, when we’ve been shooting any who deface them for generations.”

Jon joined her at the beast’s side, and slowly began working the arrow shaft out of its neck to see if it was reusable. 

Baely remained quiet, for a time, before she spoke up again. “So this warg you’re looking to kill. He strong?”

“Horrifically so.” Jon replied. “I’d never seen a man able to warg into multiple skins at once, before him.”

“You’ve seen him?” she asked. “But you don’t know where he is?” her eyes grew wide. “He’s strong enough to warg past the Wall?”

“That he is.”

“By the Old Gods.” She breathed. “That’s not a skinchanger you’re after, Snow. That’s not any kind of man at all.” 

“He is a man.” Jon deftly tied a rope around the front legs of the elk, and slid a straight rod between the arc created. “And I know for a fact that the Raven can be killed.”

“The Raven.” she repeated. Jon caught a tremor in her voice, and he turned to her to see her face white with horror. “You’re here to kill the Three-Eyed Raven.”

“I am.” Jon replied, wincing. He hadn’t meant to say his name aloud. “Before he kills me.” 

“The Last Greenseer.” she scrambled to her feet. “I - I want no part in this. I’ll not have my family dragged by a madman into a milkbabe’s tale. The Three-Eyed Raven isn’t real.”

“You’re awfully afraid of a milkbabe’s tale.” Jon remarked sourly, squat-waddling over to the hind legs and beginning to tie them. “Help me carry this back, and-”

“No!” Baely exclaimed, her head darting back and forth between Jon and the scowling face of the Weirwood. “I - My family wants no part of your schemes, southroner! Take your packs and go, or I’ll put an arrow in you!” 

“What on earth are you-”

“NOW!” Baely nocked an arrow and drew it back to anchor, pointed directly at Jon’s heart. “Get out!”

Jon threw up his hands, and slowly stood, backing away. He had never once seen a Free Folk react this way to mention of the Three-Eyed Raven, and none of the stories he had heard, other than his own life story, explained it.

_ But not every clan tells the same tales. Some were warped by the telling, and some were simply forgotten. Many people might be alive now that were not when I first asked. _

“Alright.” Jon said, deliberate in his enunciation. “I will leave. Thank you for allowing me to return and get my pack. I won’t trouble you anymore.” he turned and walked slowly towards the village, intentionally leaving his back towards the woman with the taut bow.

[The village was not more](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDnENTDuAiI) than thirty minutes away, but Jon walked slowly and surely, making sure not to intentionally startle the wildling. It was the latter half of the hour when the village came into view, and a series of screams became hearable.

“Ynga!” Baely cried, her voice full of distress. 

Jon gritted his teeth, and burst into a run. “STOP!” Baely shouted. The teenager immediately darted to the side, not an instant too soon as an arrow pierced through where he had been. 

Jon rounded the corner, and came across a sight he couldn’t quite believe. Nearly half the village had gathered at the margins, standing well back from Ynga, who was being menaced by a large, dark Shadowcat. “Please!” She pleaded. “Please, I don’t want to! Help me!” 

The Shadowcat snarled, and slapped with its front paws at her back, it’s claws retracted. She turned and attacked it with a small dagger, but the beast dashed lithely around the jab. Not a single man there stepped in to help, though half of them held their weapons tightly. Even Virkyn, her father, stood there and let his daughter be assaulted, but Jon noticed that his face was bright red, and his fists were clenched so tightly they had burst the stitching on his gloves.

“Papa! Please!” Ynga sobbed. “I don’t want to!”

Jon scowled. He stomped forward, and drew his longsword. The scrape of castle-forged steel on leather and iron was clear and distinctive in the air, and every pair of eyes in the village immediately turned towards him. “NO!” Virkyn shouted.

The Shadowcat immediately locked eyes on Jon, and rowled loudly, like thunder over the mountains. Jon quickly raised the blade high and close to his head, poised for a thrust, as the beast crouched. 

With a powerful flex of muscles, the Shadowcat pounced, crossing the distance between them in an instant. Jon countered, and slammed the flat of his blade against the cat’s forepaws. The impact nearly knocked Jon off his feet, and he slid backwards in the snow. 

The Shadowcat immediately flexed his lower half and slashed its hind leg claws at his chest, tearing furrows through his leather jerkin. Jon roared in reply and pushed the cat off of him, who landed lightly on the snow. The predator lunged forward, but Jon spun and slashed at its back, cleaving a bright red line through the mantle of black.

The cat yowled in pain, and immediately darted back. Now it was wary, and Jon roared at it, gesticulating with his sword. “GO ON!” He shouted. “GET! GO!” He slapped the flat of his blade against the wall of a nearby house, and the ringing sound of steel on stone was loud and piercing. “GET OUT OF HERE!”

“STOP!” Virkyn roared. “What have you done!?”

“It’s a Shadowcat!” Jon shouted. “They’re only bold enough to attack men when they’re starving! Give it trouble and it’ll find a carcass to scavenge instead!” 

The Shadowcat paused in its flickering movements, and tilted its head in an incredibly human-looking gesture. 

“You fucking idiot!” Virkyn roared. “It’s not a Shadowcat! It’s-”

The Shadowcat’s eyes flashed pure white, for just an instant.

“The Lord of Moss Hill!” 

Jon felt his the world tilt on its axis. 

The Shadowcat chuffed, almost as if the skinchanger was laughing at him, before beginning to prowl about, staring directly at Jon. Jon scowled, and lifted his blade higher. In response, the skinchanger sank low, in preparation to pounce -

And then immediately seized up. The cat’s body thrashed about, yowling loudly as it’s leg locked into placed, and toppled to its side. The tail that was thicker than Jon’s neck slammed against the ground repeatedly, and a keening note escaped the beast’s throat.

“Wh-what’s happening!?” one of the hunters exclaimed.

Jon knew. He recognized it. “Someone’s fighting the Lord of Moss Hill for control.” he breathed. “And they’re winning.” 

At once, the Shadowcat went still. It slowly pushed itself to its feet, lithe and sinuous. It stared directly at Jon, and its dark yellow eyes were once again pure white. The entire movement pattern of the beast was different.

_ The Three-Eyed Raven has found me again. _

“Not this time.” Jon growled, lifting his sword. “You’re not getting the drop on me again, you three-eyed whoreson.”

The Shadowcat angled its body down, its bleeding side ignored as both it and Jon circled around the other. The teen could immediately tell the difference; the Raven moved fluidly inside the beast’s body, where the Lord was all force and power. 

The Shadowcat burst into movement, slashing at Jon’s legs. Jon skipped back just out of range and stabbed at the beast’s muzzle, but the Raven rolled to the side and darted back. It hissed in displeasure. 

“Not so easy when you can’t ambush a man, is it?” Jon snapped. The Raven rumbled in response. Jon reached behind him, drawing his long, fat hunting knife from his back holster and flipped it around to a reverse grip. “It doesn’t matter if you get me here.” said Jon, staring at the beast. “All you’ll have done is piss me off.” 

The enormous feline pounced, high over Jon’s head. Jon slashed at its belly as it passed, but he missed by inches, and was battered in the head by its paws. A man screamed as he was taken to the ground and gouged by the extended claws, but Jon paid no attention as he shook the stars from his vision as quickly as he was able, whirling about.

The Raven was already lunging at his exposed back, but pivoted on a dime to dodge the spinning longsword, darting back out of range. Jon spat a wad of blood, and flexed his wrist experimentally by spinning the longsword once. The Shadowcat lunged again, but as Jon slashed again with the sword, it dodged into the range of his off-hand, where Jon immediately stabbed into its eye with his knife.

The beast howled in pain, jerking its head free and sending the small blade tumbling out of Jon’s hand. It dashed back far out of reach, glaring at the teenager with one eye filled with hatred. Jon flashed his teeth in only the faintest approximation of a smile. “Got you, bastard.” 

Now the beast’s back was up, and refused to expose its left side to him. The two circled each other. Jon absently noted that he hadn’t heard any of the wildling villagers in some time, but only for a moment. In a burst of movement, Jon rushed forward, slashing ferociously at the shadowcat. It dodged the first overhand cut, and the second follow-up slice, but then its head twisted in the wrong direction to avoid the third and lash out a paw, exposing its blind side.

With a swift hop backward, Jon avoided the swipe, slashing at the beast’s leg and severing it in a single motion. The Shadowcat howled in pain, hobbling to the side. 

Jon lunged forward, stabbing at it. The shadowcat bounced back out of the hit, standing on its hind legs for a moment, before pouncing, savage teeth exposed and racing towards Jon’s throat. Jon moved on pure instinct and flicked the point of his blade upwards, and the beast drove its breast onto the blade to the hilt.

The shadowcat slammed into Jon’s chest, knocking him to the ground. The beast thrashed about wildly on top of him, razor-sharp claws coming within an inch of his face, but Jon roared in defiance and kept tight hold of his longsword, making a point of wrenching the blade in all directions inside of the animal to mangle its innards. 

Seconds passed, coating the front of his torso in sticky red blood, until the beast finally fell still. The full weight slumped down onto him, until he pushed with his forearm to roll the carcass off of him. Coated in beast blood, Jon stumbled to his feet, leaned over, and ripped his longsword from the breast of the dead animal in a spray of gore. 

“Anyone  _ else _ ?” he snarled.

Not a single surrounding Free Folk villager replied, staring at him with wide, fearful eyes. Ynga, the pretty girl who the beast had been assaulting, was nowhere to be seen.

Jon smirked.  _ It wasn’t every day you met a man skilled enough to kill a Shadowcat in melee combat. _

He flicked the longsword twice before wiping it clean of blood on the fur of the Shadowcat, and then sheathed it. “Any man who moves within ten feet of me or nocks an arrow in my presence dies.” he declared. He walked towards his knife, and they fearfully scurried away from him as he picked it up and sheathed it. “Bring me my pack and place it at the edge of the village. Do this, and you’ll never see me again.” 

He glared. “And if anything is missing… I’ll know.” 

 

* * *

 

“Snow! Snow! Snow!”

Jon cracked an eye open, glaring hatefully at the crow perched on a branch. “If you want another arrow in your breast, you only had to ask.” 

The crow stayed perched on the tree branch, not moving an inch. It was only when Jon reached over and grabbed his hunting bow that the bird took off into the canopy with a wave of feathers. 

Jon lowered his head back down to his makeshift pillow and groaned. It had been three days since he had left Cliffsedge behind, and it seemed that the Greenseer had decided to attempt to murder him through exhaustion, after the rest of the animal ambushes failed. Every moment that jon attempted to sleep, some sort of weak ambush or loud noise would startle him awake, and prevent him from rest. 

It had been a day and a half since he had slept more than an hour or two, and already he could feel his senses dulling and his reflexes slipping. He took great pains to follow Ranger Roads that led him away from natural features that were deadly to the clumsy, such as steep hills or fast streams. Even so, he had begun to trip and stumble in any amount of snow.

Jon slowly pushed himself to a seated position, and shakily reached for his sword-belt.  _ If the Raven were going to choose an opportune time to attack me, now would be it.  _ He hadn’t had his eyes closed for more than 30 minutes before that raven appeared. It likely meant there was something else coming. 

He stumbled to his feet, and glanced about. Even with the afternoon sun still lighting the forest, his vision was clouded and fuzzy. “Come on.” Jon said aloud. “Let’s get this over with. No games, Greenseer.”

Silence.

Jon almost sighed. And then he realized that it wasn’t quiet. It was dead silent. 

“Seven hells.” Jon carefully drew his longsword, already dulling from how many beasts he had been forced to kill, and held it forward. 

Nothing moved in that forest, even as Jon strained his senses to catch the ambush he was certain was coming. He saw nothing, other than the encroaching blackness of sleep; he heard nothing, other than the pounding of his own heart.

Then, after what could have only been minutes, but felt like a lifetime, he saw it. From behind a distant set of trees, three wolves emerged. They were normal wolves, and not walking in the unified manner that Jon expected of the Raven’s pack ambushes, but they still lacked the customary wariness of man that Jon knew was normal for them. They walked together towards him, and stopped some yards away. One of them, a grey-brown beast with one eye the mottled white of blindness, lifted his head and howled long and loud. 

Jon held up the sword higher and tried to keep the sway from his legs as he watched the three wolves begin to circle around him. They all stayed several yards away from him, but still trod a path that allowed them to lunge quickly. And they didn’t close the gap.

Jon stood there, watching with fevered intensity as they circled, until another sound intruded. It was a dull thudding. Heavy footsteps, bigger than a man, and with a four-legged gait. Jon whirled toward the source, and his eyes widened. 

From the depths of the forest emerged a massive, 13-foot tall snow bear. It snarled at him, but continued its measured gait. On top of the snow bear, a small dark lump stood out in his blurry vision against the snow bear’s fur. 

Jon shook his head, and the grey lump fluttered into detail. It was a man, draped in the colors of a Shadowcat cloak. The man was riding and controlling the snow bear without any reins or spurs, and his eyes glittered with unshielded malevolence.

Varamyr Fiveskins came to a halt atop his steed and stared down at Jon. “So you’re the kneeler bastard who killed my cat.” He said, in the Common Tongue. “You’ll die for that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it again. Y'all know what it is.  
>   
> Thanks to all of you who gave condolences last chapter. As you might have guessed, between that chapter and last I'm now short one grandpa these days, and he and I were actually pretty close. It didn't leave me in the best mindset for writing. But life moves on, and we all get better. Getting old is not a process for sissies.  
>   
> This chapter was also held up by a little bit of a struggle with the plot. I know what I want to happen, in order to keep things moving, but just saying 'thing A happened, and then they moved and did thing B here, while thing C happened in the background' isn't very interesting. There needs to be a connective tissue. So I made up the village of Cliffsedge. We certainly know there were more clans than just the ones we were introduced to in the books and series; some were just not big enough to get names.  
>   
> I'm also leaning on the rather smart concept that was theorized by the GoT hired linguist that not every single wildling beyond the Wall spoke the same unified Old Tongue, but instead likely diverged into many different dialects based on region. It makes sense, and also feeds into one of the ideas I have down the pipe. Can you guess what it is? I left a hint this chapter...


	7. Life Five: Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter the Fiveskins.

[Jon remembered Varamyr](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYAZ5RZBMgk) most for his time among Mance’s warband. He had seen him, when Ygritte had led him around the camp, astride his snow bear and as haughty and proud as any Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. “Are you afraid of wargs, Jon Snow?” She had asked, with her teasing drawl. “The Fiveskins is the greatest in a hundred years. Maybe he’ll find a direwolf for his pack, and they’ll call him Varamyr Sixskins, instead.” She had turned to him and smirked. “Then he’ll be more a wolf than you.”

Jon had thought no more of him, until he went back beyond the Wall, and heard the legends of his death. He had left, when Mance’s host broke against Stannis, and returned to his hall, where he refused to be pried free even when the whole of the army of the dead had swept over him. The Beastlord’s War, the bards named it. They claimed he had commanded a thousand skins, and died a thousand times, beating away the horde of wights until his mind broke. The truth was less certain, but many at Hardhome lived because of the distraction he created among the Others. 

And now the man was alive again, less of a legend but no less powerful. 

_And I have killed his tame shadowcat, for he is the Lord of Moss Hill and I am merely a man who knows nothing._

Jon grimaced, and lifted his blade higher. _I am sick to death of being mauled by animals._

The wolves circled closer around him, but none passed beyond a certain point, and Varamyr remained seated upon his mount, unmoving even as he glared his hatred at the Stark bastard. It took a moment for him to realize, but then his eyes widened.

_He fears me. His beasts outnumber me four to one, and yet he is wary still. Why?_

“Well met, Fiveskins.” Jon replied to him, in the Common tongue. 

“Fourskins, now.” Varamyr snapped. “Thanks to your blade.”

Jon bit back the wordplay that immediately jumped to his lips. He was above those jokes, for the moment. “You are not my foe, but I will fight if you force me to.” He replied. “How many of your second lives will I cut down before I fall?”

“I’ll find more.” Said Varamyr, in a low growl. “There are other beasts to be broken to my hand in these forests.”

“Maybe I’ll take your hand, then, before I die.” Said Jon. The world wobbled, and his foot shot out wider to keep himself standing.

The warg’s eyes narrowed. “Bold words, for a man who can’t stand up.”

“You woke me from my nap.” Jon retorted, his voice cracking in the process. “Hunting grumpkins and snarks is tiring work.”

Varamyr lifted his hand. “Then the hunter has become the hunted.” He flicked his hand forward.

None of his beasts moved. 

Jon, after tensing, looked to his side. The one-eyed wolf was standing stock-still. Both of its eyes were white.

“Oh, for the love of-”

 “Snow! Snow!” 

Varamyr’s eyes were bulging, and the top of his bald head had gone pink with blood. “What have you done to my beasts!?” He shouted.

“It’s not me.” Jon replied, and lifted his sword to point it at the crow perched on the tree behind him. “You couldn’t have waited thirty seconds to let him kill me, could you?” He shouted at the crow. “You just _had_ to do it yourself. Gods forbid anybody other than yourself kill me. They might have gotten it _wrong_.”

The one-eyed wolf and its companions growled in unison. The snow bear under Varamyr roared and threw itself onto its hind legs, sending the wildling warg flying off its furry back. 

“... Fuck it. Fuck it!” Jon screamed. “Come on!”

The four beasts moved in unison towards the cornered Northman, and Jon charged swordpoint-first at the one-eyed wolf. It darted to the side of his blade, snapping its jaws at his arm, but Jon kept running, his sword sweeping in wide arcs. One of the smaller beasts lunged for his ankles and was met with a kick in the snout, sending it yipping in pain backwards - directly into the path of the charging snow bear, who was unable to dodge out of the way and trampled it underneath. 

The three beasts all shuddered as one, as the Raven died a death, and Jon skipped backwards. He slid minutely on a patch of frozen ground before jumping forward on the offensive at the other young wolf to exploit the opening, hacking downwards at its neck with a furious howl. An instant before the blade connected, the wolf’s eyes lost the pure white, and Jon cleaved into the head of an unpossessed animal, getting caught in its brainpan. 

A snarl sounded from behind him, and Jon immediately rolled forward, leaving the stuck blade behind. The world grew dizzy, and he stumbled to his feet, with his sword out of his hands and still in the body of the wolf. The old one-eyed wolf stood where he had just been, while the snow bear snapped wildly at thin air, ignoring Jon completely. 

The Northerner clenched his jaw and drew his knife with his off-hand, slowly stepping to the side as the large wolf stood possessively close to the abandoned sword. “Four against one, I haven’t slept in two days, and you still can’t take me without an ambush.” he spat, baring his teeth in an angry grimace. “I’ve got your measure now.”

The one-eyed pack leader snarled, its ears laying flat against it’s skull and its fur bristling all along its back. Jon slowly bent his knees and sidestepped towards his abandoned sword, but the one-eyed wolf snarled and lunged forward enough to make him flinch. 

The world began to swim in front of his eyes, and his hands shook. Jon’s leg shot out to stable his stance, and in that moment of weakness, the wolf lunged. Blinding hot pain lanced through his right arm, and Jon was slammed into the hard frozen ground by a hundred pounds of flying wolf. 

Jon screamed in pain, and the Raven only crunched his teeth down harder, but before he could begin to shake the limb in his mouth to sever it, Jon stabbed the knife through its neck. A burst of blood coated his wrist, but he just kept screaming and stabbing the beast in the neck, until the light left the wolf’s one good eye, and it slowly toppled onto him. 

The blade dropped from his grip, and with his one good hand, Jon reached towards the beast’s muzzle. Every single movement sent his vision into burning white, but even so, he pried the sharp teeth from his right arm and gingerly pulled it free, before rolling the corpse off of him. He had killed the animal before it could begin the severing motion, but his forearm and wrist were a bloody mulch, and he couldn’t feel his fingers. 

Gasping, Jon clutched his arm close to his torso and pushed himself upright. “COME ON!” He screamed at the snow bear, just standing at the edge of the fight, eyes pure white. “COME ON!” 

The bear shuddered, and the color of it’s eyes flickered, until finally the white faded, and it’s dark eyes stared at him with a human intelligence. It groaned lowly once, before turning around and treading to Varamyr’s side. 

It turned its head to Jon, and gently pawed at the wildling, who was prone against the ground, his eyes pure white. 

Jon’s eyes widened. “... Varamyr?”

The bear inclined it’s head, slowly. The beast pawed at the unconscious body once more, before arching its back prominently, and then jostling Varamyr once again.

“... You want me to get you back on the bear without waking you.” Jon interpreted. “You want to leave, but you’re not breaking your control for that.”

The bear nodded.

Jon gritted his teeth, and grabbed the hunting knife where it fell - even jostling his hand sent stars to his vision, but he wiped the blood on the pelt of the wolf and resheathed it, before doing the same to his sword. “You’ll fall off.”

The bear snorted, before pointing a claw at Jon.

“And why would I come with you?” Jon asked. “You, who only came here to kill me?”

The bear snarled in response, and slammed its leg into the ground hard. An obvious threat. 

“No.” Jon shook his head. “I’ll take my chances alone.”

The snow bear snorted in response, and lifted its leg into the air, before letting its paw droop and limply shook it about. Then it flashed its black claws out, and it bared its teeth.

Jon grimaced, and clutched his right arm closer to his torso - the blood still flowed from the wounds, and he couldn’t feel his fingers underneath the glove. The Warg was right - he was useless in a fight without his sword-arm. He had a little practice with a dagger in his off-hand - Jon had learned many unorthodox techniques from the Wildlings, among them Half-Handing and Dual-Wielding - but he wasn’t some ambidextrous master. He would be easy prey for another ambush.

With a moment’s hesitation, he reached down and clumsily slung his pack onto his shoulders with one hand and walked to Varamyr’s side. He was a smaller man, the same height as Jon even though Jon was only half-grown, and from the tops of his ears to his crown his head was shaved hairless. Jon wrapped an arm around his midsection and found he was able to lift him, speaking to his thinness. 

The bear, mercifully, lowered down onto it’s belly. With an awkward shuffle to the beast’s side, Jon threw Varamyr’s body over the back of the bear, and he draped across it like a limp sack. The bear turned to face him, and Jon could swear it was smirking at him. Jon’s lips thinned into a line, before he grabbed a hank of white hair and yanked himself upwards.

 

* * *

 

[The moon had crossed it’s zenith](http://tabletopaudio.com/index.html?141) and began to sank when Jon was jolted awake by the snow bear flopping heavily to the ground. He wearily pulled himself upright, off of the back of Varamyr’s prone body he had been lying crosswise across so that neither of them fell off while he slept. With a heavy rub at the drool on his cheek, and slow blinks, jon came back to his senses.

At first glance, Jon thought that Varamyr had brought them to a large, nondescript hill that rose above his head. Once he had blinked the sleep out of his eyes, though, he was shocked to see that it was instead a large hall, built out of dirt and mud and covered in moss, with a small timber door hidden cleverly behind a hanging sheet of thick moss. The sides merged into the ground seamlessly, and had Jon not been brought directly to the door he would never have given it a second glance.

Marvelling at the construction technique he hadn’t expected from a man of the Free Folk, Jon pulled himself slowly from the snow bear’s back, and transferred Varamyr to his shoulder. With both the man and his heavy pack over his shoulder, it took him more time than he would have to make his way to the door. 

He opened the door slowly, and an instant strong, acrid smell assaulted his nose and made him wheeze. Stepping through the door, he instantly noticed the temperature difference - it was cold enough for deep snows outside, but inside was well above freezing. Jon slowly kicked the door closed.

As soon as the latch took, the body over his shoulder came alive. Varamyr let out an inhuman snarl, and wriggled out of Jon’s grip before falling to the ground on all fours. The Warg scuttled around on the floor, slamming into things that Jon couldn’t see in the dark and growling like an animal, and jon involuntarily stepped backwards until his back was to the door he had just closed. Outside, the snow bear let out a bellowing roar, and the sound of a bear galloping away stayed his hand from leaving the earthen longhouse.

After another few moments of beastly sounds and clumsy four-legged walking by Varamyr in the dark, far ahead of him, he grew silent. 

“Fuck.” 

Varamyr’s dark silhouette rose from the ground into a stand. It looked as though an arm was rubbing against his head - it was possible he had slammed his skull against something solid.

“Never like being in a beast’s skin for that long.” He continued in a low, gravelly baritone. “Makes it hard to remember how to be a man when you come out. Couldn’t take the chance, though.”

Varamyr’s silhouette sunk down to the ground. “So. You weren’t the one who took my cat, kneeler. That’s the only reason you’re still alive, after killing most of my skins.”

“Aye.” Jon replied, as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. There were dark shapes all over the interior of the earthen longhouse. Furniture, perhaps. “I’m here to kill the man who did.”

“Then we have a common enemy.” Said Varamyr. “I’ll rip the bastard’s throat out with my teeth - One-Eye was going to be my second life, or one of his pups if I lived that long.” His shadow moved. “Your arm. Can you hold a sword?”

Jon grimaced, and held up his hand. He had bandaged it and splinted it with supplies from his pack while riding, but the bandages were soaked red, and his wrist was swelling. 

“Tch. hold on. We need light.” His shadow disappeared deeper into the longhouse, before the sound of flintstones being struck together rung out. A spark caught, and the acrid smell in the air intensified as a fire in the middle of the room took. Jon was amazed to see that the logs were not wood, but instead appeared to be long thin bricks of dark earth. The dirt burned low but hot, and almost smokelessly, but the smell was nearly overpowering.

“Heh.” Varamyr scoffed. “Never seen bog dirt burn? Cut and dry a hundred sleds of these and I have enough to last an entire winter, and I don’t have to chop a single tree.” He walked across the packed dirt floor and grabbed Jon by the wounded arm, yanking it away from his chest and up to eye level. “That’ll go foul, like as not.” He released him. “I have something for that.”

Jon didn’t appreciate being manhandled, and yanked his arm back as Varamyr disappeared around a corner. Now that the bog dirt had taken, he had a better view of the interior. The hall was braced all around by thick, load-bearing trees, and the walls were the color of smoothed blue clay, instead of dirt. By the entry door, he could see many stacked bricks of hardened dirt where the clay walls ended, and rough-carved wooden chairs, tables and beds covered with thick furs were pressed to the sides.

The hall was so well-designed that it was not simply one single room, but divided in half by dirt walls, with a narrow opening to pass through; Jon could imagine that given the size of it from outside, there might even be a third room. Hanging from a ceiling-bracing log was a long metal chain, and a brass cooking pot swung gently over the bog dirt fire. Though it was made of nothing but logs, mud and moss, Jon had never seen such a well-adorned hall north of the Wall. 

_Small wonder the Free Folk called him a Lord. And small wonder the Beastlord fought so viciously to protect this place, in the songs._

Varamyr came quickly from the other room, holding a rag that was clearly torn from a Night’s Watch uniform and a brass jug. “Unwrap it.” He commanded. Jon did, gently. The bite marks still oozed fluid, and his wrist had swollen to twice its normal size, but the blood had stopped. Varamyr dunked the rag into the jug, and it came back wet and viscous, before applying it roughly into his wounds. 

Jon grit his teeth at the pain. “What… _is_ that?” He asked. “Smells disgusting.”

“Recipe a woods witch taught me. Payment for staying in my hall and eating my food.” Varamyr replied, his expression not changing as he applied the ointment. “Take booze as the base. Add equal amounts of crushed garlic and onions. Then you cut open a snow bear’s stomach, rip out its gallstones, pulverize one and add it.” He sneered at Jon’s curdled expression. “That’ll be the smell. Put it all in a brass jug and let it curdle for nine days exactly - had to go north and trade with the fucking Thenns to get that, but it doesn’t work in a wooden jug. I’ve tried.”

Varamyr set the jug aside, took the bloodied rag from Jon’s hands and lobbed it into the fire, before handing him the ointment-drenched rag. “There. That’ll keep the pus out of your blood.”

“My thanks.” 

“It wasn’t a gift.” Varamyr seated himself on a wolf pelt, as Jon carefully wrapped his wrist back into place with the splint. “You saved me from the wretch who stole my skins, and now I save you from foul blood. I owe you nothing.” He leaned forward. “Now, you’re going to tell me who he is.”

Jon grabbed one end of the rag in his teeth and wrenched the knot in place with his good hand before he answered. “He’s a Greenseer.”

Varamyr’s eyes widened for a moment, and then narrowed. “There are no Greenseers, anymore.”

“Then he must be the last one.”

Varamyr burst to his feet and grabbed Jon by the scruff of his shirt, hauling the teenager’s face within inches of his. “Don’t fuck with me, boy.” He said lowly, and his rank breath washed over Jon’s face. “You southron milksuckers don’t know the meaning of such words.”

“Did I stutter?” Jon snapped, unafraid. “I said what I said.”

Varamyr glared, and pulled the boy so close that their noses brushed. “Say his name.”

“I don’t know his name.” Jon’s eyes narrowed to slits. “But I know that he calls himself the Three-Eyed Raven.”

Varamyr went still, but his eyes twitched wildly, tracing across the teen’s face. Eventually, his grip loosened, and the Warg stepped back. 

“You’re not lying.”

Jon nodded.

“... Why?”

“He wants my brother.” Said Jon, softly. “He has power, so he wants to take him, like a second life. I came North to stop him.”

Varamyr closed his eyes, and his face went blank. “The Three-Eyed Raven.” He murmured. “Nothing but a tale for babes.” 

Jon stood there silently, watching the Warg process the information. After a long minute, Varamyr slowly smiled, a bloodthirsty expression. “They’ll call me Varamyr Godkiller, after I’m done with him.”

He turned his back on Jon. “Get out. I have all I need from you.”

“What?” Jon’s jaw dropped slightly. “But the Raven-”

“Is after you.” Varamyr cut him off. “He used my cat and my wolves against you, and would have stolen my bear as well if I didn’t keep a tight leash on her mind; then we’d both be dead. You leave, and he chases you.” He turned slightly, his mouth pulled into a snarl. “And that means he won’t see me coming with a new pack.”

Jon felt the blood drain out of his face. With his hand the way that it was, he couldn’t hold either a bow or a sword, and he had no idea where he was in relation to any possible clans. If he wasn’t ambushed yet again by the Raven, there was a good chance he’d starve to death. With as much ground as he’d covered, he didn’t want to have to start all over again.

_I can only survive with help. And the only one around to help is Varamyr._

Jon clenched his good fist at his side. He wasn’t enough of a fool to think a man like the Lord of Moss Hill worked on charity. He had deliberately not fed him, though both of their stomachs were softly growling, so that he could not claim guest right. He couldn’t trade anything from his pack, for he needed it all in the future. The only thing he could give freely was information, but he knew nothing about the Warg other than an ego-stroking story he would just laugh at.

Varamyr seemed to notice something in his expression, for his lips pulled away from his teeth, showing how one of his canines had been split in half in the past. “Don’t try anything, kneeler.” he warned. “I can call my bear back at any time.”

“... I want to be there.” Jon said, finally. He had to at least try. “When you kill him.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

“Then you’re fucking worthless to me.” He turned his back on him. “Get moving.”

“I can pay you.” Jon replied, urgently. 

“Your southron money is worthless to me.” Said the Warg. “And if I wanted anything from your pack, I’d maul you and take it from your corpse.”

Jon grit his teeth. He knew nothing about Varamyr. Nothing that he could exploit -

_But I know the Free Folk. And I know the North._

The revelation hit him like a mace to the chest. “If you killed me,” Jon countered, “Then you’d never learn what I know. A secret worth more gold than any kingdom in Westeros.”

Varamyr stilled. 

Jon grinned in triumph. He had him.

“And what secret is that?” Varamyr asked quietly. “It had better be good.”

“I know how to get across the Wall.” Jon replied.

“Everybody knows how to get across the Wall.” Varamyr rumbled. “You take the Gorge or you grab an ice pick. It’s not hard.”

“Not my way.” Jon shook his head. “My way is a tunnel. Exits directly into the middle of an abandoned keep on the other side. Not even the Night’s Watch has records of this passage, so they never blocked it off.”

Varamyr’s back was still turned to Jon, but the older man had gone perfectly still. “There is a secret tunnel under the Wall?” He repeated. “That… that is a fine secret, indeed. Many men would kill for such a secret.”

In a blur of movement, a large knife was in Varamyr’s hand, and it was pressed to Jon’s throat. The bald man’s eyes were shining wildly in the light of the fire, and a vicious grin spread across his face. “And you’re going to tell me that secret.”

Jon did everything within his power to keep his throat from swallowing and pressing flesh into the edge, and glared with all the contempt he could muster upwards at the man. “It’s a Weirwood tree.” He answered. “The largest I’ve ever seen. The face will speak, and ask a question. Only the right man giving the right answer will open the tunnel, when the Weirwood opens its mouth wide enough for half-a-dozen men to walk through shoulder-to-shoulder.” his eyes narrowed. “It won’t open for you. It WILL open for me.”

“A magic tree, huh.” Varamyr repeated, clearly not believing him. “And just where did you find this magic tree?”

“In the Nightfort, the oldest castle on the Wall. It’s been abandoned for centuries. The gate will lead from this side of the wall to the bottom of a well, in the middle of the kitchen. The walls are scalable, for an able man.”

“But not for beasts.” Said Varamyr, vocalizing the implicit statement. 

“Not for beasts.” 

“And only _you_ can open it.” 

“Not ONLY me. But the other men who could do it would fling themselves from the top of the Wall before helping you.” Said Jon. “And no other man knows the passphrase, for no other man knows the gate even exists.” He gulped, slightly, and the sharp edge cut a thin line of red across his throat. “You deal with me, or the knowledge is less than worthless.”

Varamyr stared silently at him - only the crackle of the bog dirt logs broke the silence, until at last he laughed. “HAR! Well said, kneeler. I need you alive for this crow-black gate to work. Then let us deal.” he pulled the knife away and sheathed it. Jon stifled the immediate impulse to brush a hand over the red line etched on his throat. 

“I partake of your bread and salt.” Said Jon. “I stay as a guest in your home as I heal, and we hunt the Raven. I know he is above the Milkwater, but below the valley of the Thenns, and not so far east as the Frostfangs. Somewhere that a young, crippled boy could reach while being pulled on a sled.”

“You suggest searching nearly half the Forest for the Raven, for the promise of this black gate while you suck my supplies dry?” Varamyr retorted hotly. “No. I will not allow that. I will give you bread and salt, but you will work for the privilege of my aid.”

“And how would I do that?” Jon replied, holding up his right arm. “I can hold neither a bow nor a sword.”

“By the Gods, you’re a skinchanger.” Varamyr replied, gesturing wildly. “Don’t pretend you’re useless, I could sense your power a mile away.”

Jon went still. “... How did you know that?” Jon asked, eyes wide.

Varamyr’s eyebrows furrowed. “Are you touched in the head, boy? I can _sense_ you. You exist in my mind like a tick burrowing between my shoulderblades. Any skinchanger can tell another for what they are.”

Jon slowly blinked. “... I can’t.” He admitted. “You feel no different from any other man.”

“Don’t be stupid. Your training would tell you that I am-” Varamyr stopped. “... You’re _not_ trained, are you?”

Jon slowly shook his head. “I am not.”

“Children preserve us. What do they _feed_ you kneelers? No training and still your presence nearly drives me to murder - can you even get out of your own skin, boy?”

Jon was feeling distinctly like he was failing a test he hadn’t known he was taking. “No. I have had wolf dreams, and can communicate with Ghost, but I have never… warged.”

“HAR!” Varamyr laughed, scornfully. “Nearly a man grown, and you still can’t get out of your own skin! Fucking kneelers. I had warged into my father’s hounds and ripped out my brother’s throat before my seventh nameday.” Jon’s eyes shot wide at the casual admittance of kinslaying, as the wildling leaned back, a scrutinizing look in his eyes. “A proper warg, though… that’s good. It takes a certain kind of man to dream of wolves.”

Varamyr grinned, and in the flickering light of the fire it looked sinister. “Then here is what you will do. You will serve me as we hunt this Raven. I will teach you all the things your worthless sires should have taught you from the moment you first dreamed on four legs. And in return, you will bring to me a replacement beast for every one you slew, and one more. When I have become Varamyr Sixskins, we will scour the Forest until we hold the Three-Eyed Raven’s wooden heart in our hands.”

He stepped forward, and his shadow draped long and pointed over the blue clay walls. “And then you will lead me to this Black Gate, and speak the words you need to speak, and I will cross over to the South without a man knowing, and I will be freer than any of the Free Folk have ever been since the Dawn. And all will know, that I am Lord of all that I see.”

The Beastlord held out his left hand, fingers spread. “Do we have a deal?”

Jon stared down at the extended hand, feeling an uncertain dread sweep into him. For all that he knew that this was likely the only way he could continue on without waking up in Winterfell once again, the twisting of his bowels whispered to his mind that this was a bad idea, yet still. 

He looked up and met Varamyr and his promises of tutelage in the eye.

 _‘Put that on your list of things to do, then._ _Right above getting us out of this damn dungeon and right below learning how to sail.’_

_You were right, Theon. This is something that needs to be done, sooner rather than later. I shall simply have to learn as I hunt._

Jon exhaled, steadied himself, and met the warg’s outstretched arm with his own left, gripping him at the crook of his elbow. “We have a deal.” he declared.

“Your name?”

“Jon Snow.” 

“Then be welcome at my hearth, Snow, and eat well of my bread and salt. For tomorrow, you will bring me my skin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well wouldja look at that. Y’all thought he was dead at the end of the last chapter. SIKE. He was meeting his new teacher. Chapter was a little bit shorter than usual this time, but it was such a good cutoff point that I had to do it to em. I'll see if I can't bump up the word count on the next one to make up for it.
> 
> Varamyr is one of those book characters that is going to be fun to play with, because right now, because of the way he was absent from the show, he’s a complete blank slate. The books give us a rough image of him, but Varamyr in the books was a complete jackass to Jon because he took Orell’s eagle while Orell was still in there as his second life, and so he had a dead guy whispering in his ear to kill this dude at all hours. That hasn’t happened yet. As far as I can tell, there’s not much fanon interpretation of him, either, so I feel a bit like I’m treading new ground, which always makes me excited.
> 
> I just had my birthday within the last week, so, yay me. Twenty-five. Is this the point where I start having a quarter-life crisis? Only instead of being afraid of getting old and buying a motorcycle, I cry into packets of instant ramen and worry that I’ll never have a job that I can buy a house or afford kids with? Inquiring minds want to know. 
> 
> I’ve had this rant/analysis written out for a while now, but I kept bumping it back as other shit happened that I wanted to talk about, and now that I actually decided to put it into the ending notes, I realize it's too long. So, whoops. Guess I'll just set it to the side for the moment unless I find a way to condense it down. The basic point of it is that a lot of the sins of D&D are because they deliberately ignored the themes of ASOIAF once they slipped GRRM's leash in the later seasons, in order to do cool, disjointed things. Themes aren't something that readers like to codify and quantify, but it should also be EASY to tell what the point of a story is, what the author is trying to impart as greater wisdom. By ignoring the themes of the source material, Dumb and Dumber focused on Hollywood spectacle that was about as intellectually filling as instant ramen, and shat the bed in the process.
> 
> But since I can't post the whole thing, let's play a different game instead. Once we really build up a head of steam in this story, we are going to be travelling to all the weird and wild parts of Planetos, for reasons that only I understand. While I work through the prerequisite events, I want Y'all in the comments to guess which of the Free Cities Jon's gonna visit first, and for what reason. Anybody who can get that right will be allowed to ask one question about the future of this story, and I'll try to answer as well as I can when this website doesn't have any kind of PM system and I don't want to spoil everything.
> 
> Catch you all next time.


	8. Life Five: Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How to Train Your Skinchanger.  
> Warning: brief mention of non-consensual sex.

“The essence of being a skinchanger, one that is worth the squirt into their mother’s cunt, is hate.”

Jon had been woken from his cot early in the morning with a jug of frozen snow dumped in his cot directly onto his crotch when he was wearing only his smallclothes. Varamyr stood by as the teenager shrieked in an unmanly way and swatted frantically at the cold in his loins, before shoving a wooden plate - more a facsimile of a plate, just a circular cut of a tree trunk - into his hands topped with rabbit haunch seasoned with garlic. Now Varamyr was talking to Jon, hunched over his own meal and eating with a ferociousness.

“... Hate?” Jon repeated, uneasily.

Varamyr grunted an affirmation, and tore off a hunk of flesh with his teeth. “Hate. Hate of the world, hate of the damn animal that you’re taking over, hate of anyone that would step over the line and take what’s yours. But, most importantly, hate of yourself.”

“So sorry to disappoint, then,” Said Jon, with a bored expression, “but I don’t hate myself. I’m quite comfortable with who I am.”

“You have wolf dreams recently?” 

Jon thought back to the moment he woke in the dungeons of Dragonstone, the taste of mother’s milk still on his tongue. He remembered the moment when he had unexpectedly seen through the eyes of the alleycat, to track down Aedrick and Teia. “Aye.”

Varamyr snorted. “Then you hate yourself well enough.” 

Jon’s face twisted into a sudden scowl. “I don’t hate myself.”

“Har!” Varamyr laughed once, and picked up his half-eaten haunch with his non-dominant hand. Immediately after, he swung out, and cracked Jon in the face with the wooden circle. Jon fell to the floor, immediately clutching his face in pain, his ear ringing from the strike. Varamyr stepped to his side and squatted, leering down at him.

“You can lie to yourself, boy,” Said Varamyr in a low gravelly tone, “but as long as you are in my hall, you don’t lie to me. Understand?”

“Touch me again,” Jon snarled, “And I’ll gut you.”

“Kill me and you starve to death when you burn through my supplies.” Varamyr snapped back. “And draw the wrath of the gods, but you faithless Southron shits don’t even worship correctly.” Varamyr grinned. “Unless you were touched by a miracle last night, your hand is still a ruin.”

Jon merely glowered, and pulled himself back into his seat.

“That’s what I thought.” the wildling sat back down, and quickly stripped the rabbit bone in his hand of meat. “Now. as I was saying. You hate yourself. Don’t bother arguing, because I know it’s true. Every warg hates themselves, in some way. ‘S practically required.”

“... Why?” 

“Because a man’s got no reason to slip into another’s skin if he’s comfortable in his own.” Varamyr replied, as he gathered up his bones and threw them into a simmering clay pot, where various vegetables, along with another whole rabbit, were stewing in a vinegar base and slowly becoming a bone broth. “Known plenty of Folk who never dreamed once until life fucked them raw.”

He sat back down. “Now, plenty of skinchangers are just ugly. Knowing you’ll never know a woman’s cunt unless you’ve a taste for rape will more often than not set you dreaming, if you’ve got the blood for it. But I don’t think that’s a problem for you, boy.” he laughed derisively. 

Jon thought of Orell, and the way that the man had stared longingly at Ygritte and hatefully at him whenever they were together. 

“I don’t much care what angst you have, as long as you don’t lie about it.”

Jon squared his shoulders. “I’ve come to terms with my past long ago. There’s no point to dredging it up again.”

“Fuck that.” Varamyr spat. “Come to terms? Break those terms. Whatever it is you forgave, take it back. Get mad enough to kill, again. You won’t command a damn rabbit if you don’t hate.” 

Jon merely glared at Varamyr, and the wildling scoffed and leaned back. “This is why you have to get them while they’re young. A child hates as easily as breathing. You don’t have to _convince_ them.”

The wildling folded his arms. “Your kneeler passivity and weakness is the exact opposite of what you’re trying to learn. It is through hate - blistering, blinding hate - that you project your will onto beasts that would rip your lungs from your chest the second you give them a chance. By hating yourself, you weaken the bonds between your own flesh and your mind, and by hating others, you force control onto an unwilling beast, and break them to your hand.”

“You will learn to hate, Jon Snow, or you will die here.”

Jon’s expression darkened. “I know how to hate.”

“Then prove it.”

 

* * *

 

Jon stared, face twisting in an exaggerated scowl, and thought of hate. He wanted to murder them, he wanted to snap their neck, he wanted to see them die, he wanted to watch them burn in flames, he wanted to see them in a cookpot with a sprig of parsley and garlic-

He sighed, and slumped backwards. The rabbit flickered its ears and twitched its nose, but didn’t move any closer to him from the other side of the wicker cage. 

“You finally got it?” Varamyr called from the other side of the hall, leaning across the wall. His expression immediately soured when he looked into Jon’s eyes. “Hells, boy! Are you simple in the head!?”

“I tried to hate, but all I found was hunger.” 

Varamyr threw a plate directly at Jon’s head, but the teen ducked, and it sailed over him. “Fucking - small wonder you southron shits don’t have any skinchangers!” he shouted. “You can’t even hate properly!” 

Jon clenched his left hand into a tight fist, but said nothing. He would have clenched his right fist, but he still hadn’t regained movement in his fingers. He was beginning to fear the Raven had crippled him, somehow.

“How in the ever-winter hells can you even have wolf-dreams?” Varamyr cursed. “Your very presence burns like a coal in my armpit, but you’re so fucking repressed you can’t even slip your skin!” 

“I’ve tried for a LONG time to control my temper.” Jon snapped. “People have died when I act rashly.”

Varamyr blinked. “Oho.” he stroked his chin slowly, and now he had a curious gleam in his eye. “Then perhaps you’re not totally worthless after all.” he walked around the corner with a fresh log of press-dried bog dirt and settled it onto the fire. “What can drive a kneeler such as you to murder?”

Jon looked away. “You wouldn’t understand. It’s not a thing the Free Folk ascribe to.” 

“I didn’t ask for excuses. I asked for a fucking story.”

Jon hung his head low, staring at the skittish rabbit that he had been attempting to skinchange into. “... for nearly all of my life, I was raised to think I was a bastard.” he said, finally.

Varamyr frowned. “And what the hell is a bastard?”

“It’s…” Jon scowled. “It’s what someone is, when their mother is not their father’s wife.” He looked up, and as expected, Varamyr’s face was twisted in confusion. “I know it’s not something that concerns the Free Folk, but for families south of the Wall, especially noble families, it’s an incredibly shameful thing.”

“Why?”

Jon’s eyes snapped back to Varamyr. “What?”

“Why?” he asked again, and his beady eyes were focused intently on Jon. “Why is having a son by someone you haven’t yet stolen a shameful thing? Why do your nobles care?”

“That’s…” Jon struggled. “It’s… the New Gods say that it’s shameful, but beyond that, it’s…” he licked his lips, before looking up. The words came to him. “It’s because we’re kneelers. We stay in place, instead of constantly moving. We have more, and we need to know who gets the things that cannot be put into a pack.” he reached out and knocked on a wooden timber brace. “Like this hall.”

“Aah!” Varamyr’s eyes widened in understanding. “You say that only a child of the wife can take his father’s hall when he dies!” 

“The firstborn, yes. Many younger sons leave in search of fortune and fame, since they will not inherit much when their father dies.”

Now Varamyr was stroking his chin, a thoughtful expression on his face. “But only if they are a son of the wife. If the son is a bastard… yes, I see it now. If I die in my bed and not from some twat raider slamming an ax into my skull, who would take Moss Hill from me, if the bastard is born before the son of the wife?”

“Or if the wife gave birth to a son that is clearly not her husband’s.” 

“And another man’s squirt takes Moss Hill from me by pretending to be mine.” the wildling rumbled. “And that’s who you were.” Jon nodded. “You were hated from the moment you were born.” Varamyr said. “You might take your father’s hall from the wife’s children. So you were hated, and you hated right back.”

Jon exhaled loudly. _Of course the Fiveskins would be the one Free man to understand why inheritance law exists- he’s one of the few who owns something that can’t be rolled into a tentpack._ Jon pushed himself back upright. “I was the… I was in charge of a group of men, in the south. I was sent a man who had angered the wrong man. His name was Janos Slynt, and he had a hatred of bastards. I commanded him to fortify a castle, and he refused to obey.”

“As any man should.”

Jon’s eyes narrowed. “I had him dragged outside and beheaded for insubordination. I only found out years later that he was one of the men who had murdered my father.” 

“Mmm.” The wildling’s eyebrows flexed. “So that’s what drives you to hate?” Varamyr asked. “Being a bastard? Being disobeyed?”

“... No.” Jon replied. “No. that’s not it. Not anymore.” Old memories swam before him. 

“Then what?” Varamyr leaned forward, his eyes glinting. “Who do you hate the most? What haunts you, in the dead of night?”

Jon shut his eyes tightly, faces flickering like a lightshow against his eyelids. “... I failed.” he whispered. “I failed, again and again.”

“How?”

Jon clenched his jaw, and said nothing.

“How did you fail, boy?”

With a slight tremor, Jon reached with his left hand and pulled the hem of his woolen shirt upwards, exposing the faded white scars all across his chest and stomach. Varamyr stared silently at the wounds, as the bog-dirt fire crackled and hissed softly in the background.

After a moment, Varamyr reached out a finger, and traced it across the curved, puckered skin directly over his heart. The scar itself was numb to sensation, but gooseflesh raised along the path the cold digit traveled. “Do you remember who gave you that one, boy?” he asked, quietly.

“... Olly.” Jon replied. The boy’s face was indistinct in his mind, but he remembered the way he had stood, bow in hand as Ygritte lay in his arms, and the way that he had been crying as he had cut out his heart. “His name was Olly.”

“Do you hate Olly, boy?”

“... I do. I used to feel guilty. But now…” Jon looked up. “I would have let him succeed me, even after what he did. But then he…”

Varamyr nodded, slowly, and retracted his finger as Jon slowly pulled his shirt back down. “Then hate, Jon Snow. Tear open that scar, over your heart. Hate him for giving you that, and hate yourself for not stopping him. Remember what Olly did to you, and let that hate free you.”

Jon leaned back, and shivered. 

 

* * *

 

It took Jon a fortnight with Varamyr before he first intentionally slipped his skin.

Jon didn’t like to think about the things that happened, the first time he had been this young. He had met some of his greatest companions back then, but more than half of his family and countless men and women of his childhood home had died ignominious deaths. Deaths he could not prevent, because he was trapped at a glorified frozen penal colony.

When Jon went beyond the wall with the remaining Free Folk, the nightmares of the ones he had failed, both the living and the dead, had plagued him for years. He would wake in the night choking on his own tongue instead of the screaming alternative as faces in crow-black died horribly, and the phantom smell of rancid dragon-scorched flesh lingered in his nose. Jon had attempted to keep women from his furs for fear of disturbing them, no matter how many offered.

And then Val had come, and wrenched away his shield and latched onto him like a burr. Every time he woke in the night unable to tell whether or not he was still plunging a dagger into his own kin, she would pull him close and kiss gently at the flesh of his neck and across the spread of his collarbone. How she was able to heal him and not break under the weight of her own tragedy, Jon would never know, but he adored her for it. 

When Lyan was born, in the middle of a terrible blizzard, with half the clan dead of starvation and two years still to go in that decade-long winter, she didn’t even flinch when Jon named her the day after - not a milkname, not a nickname for a babe under two who might not live past suckling their mother, but a real name - as if to say ‘ _not this one, I won’t let you have this one no matter what you do’_ to the Old Gods and the New that had brought him here. She barely left their arms for the rest of the winter, giving her the gift of their own heat, and she grew up sweet and beautiful and snuggly in a way that made Jon’s heart ache in how much he loved both her and her mother.

They helped him heal. Their memory was what allowed him to come to terms. And what Jon was doing now was the exact opposite.

Jon stared at the rabbit on the floor, and thought back on the faces of the dead. Ned Stark, beheaded on the stairs of a sept. Robb Stark, betrayed at a wedding. Ygritte, killed by his own duplicity. 

The more he remembered, the more he hated. But it wasn’t until he thought of Olly - whose face was still indistinct - that the world snapped into place. 

Jon stared at the rabbit, and thought of Olly, and the more he thought, the more his heart clenched and his face twisted into a scowl. He remembered walking across the gallows, and staring at a boy with pure unfiltered hatred in his eyes. He remembered those eyes, and with the eyes came the rest of his face, and when Olly finally came into sharp, pure focus in his memory his eyes rolled backward, and Jon slumped backwards. 

_He didn’t know where he was for a moment, over the rapid hammering of his heart and the cloying scent of swamp in the air that told him he was in danger, but he eventually went back to chewing on his leaf. After a moment, though, he had a thought - wasn’t there something he had to do?_

_He let the leaf fall from his fuzzy mouth and looked up to see wooden bars all around him, and he jumped to the side. With a twitch of his puffy cheeks, he crouched and leaped forward against the bars. The wood stopped him, but his entire floor rocked with the impact, and so he readjusted and tackled the cage again, and again. Each time the ground underneath moved the fear in him nearly threatened to burst his heart in his chest, but he forced it down._

_On the fourth tackle, the bars shifted, and his entire world shifted. A high-pitched screech escaped him as he tumbled downward, and an explosion of wood surrounded him. A gaping hole appeared, and so he got through it after wriggling his fat body through it -_

_A thundering sound. Two moving pillars that towered into the sky slammed down over him, and a thunderous noise that made him so afraid he needed to run he needed to hide he was going to die he didn’t want to die while he was so hungry he was so afraid -_

Jon’s head twisted to the side, and his body tumbled off of his seat. Varamyr grinned victoriously, his hand still moving from where he had viciously slapped the teen across the face. “First rule of skinchanging.” he said, a pleased note in his low rumbling voice. “Protect your body. A good hit can break you from the trance if you are unprepared, and if I had slit your throat instead of striking you, you would be stuck in a damn rabbit until you get eaten by a hawk.” 

“Nngh. fugoo.” Jon mumbled, his tongue lolling limply in his mouth. “Whad. whaddafug. blegh.” 

“Come on, get it out,” said Varamyr. “This happens when you get snapped out of the trance unwillingly, or you have been wearing another skin for too long. Your spirit returned at a crooked angle. Always happens the first time - men can get stuck before they’ve learned the path back, and then their body can starve to death.” 

Jon glared at him cross-eyed, but the logic held; he had been looking through the cat’s eyes until he had slammed into the wall. With an overexertion of effort, he slapped himself twice with his good hand; his body straightened, and his eyes regained their usual grey clarity. “That… was awful.”

“The rabbit, or the return?” 

“... Both.” 

“Har!” Varamyr laughed. “Second rule of skinchanging. You are what you wear. What you bind to your side changes you as much as you change them.” he leaned forward, grinning. “All a rabbit wants to do is eat, fuck, and flee at the first sign of danger. How’s your peck, Jon Snow?”

Jon scowled as he blushed deeply. “I’ll find a new animal, then.” 

“We’ll see about that.” Varamyr squatted down, eye-level with Jon. “The men who have any talent worth mentioning find predators - meat-eaters. The ones who only take grass-eater skins go strange. Cowardly, if they can’t counterbalance the impulses.” 

“Dogs are easy.” he continued. “We’ve kept them at our side for so long wearing them is like wearing your favorite boots, already molded to your size. Loyal beasts, once you’ve carved a place out for you. Wolves are tougher. Binding them to your side is like forging a marriage with the one you’ve stolen, but it’s all the more worth it if you can hack it.” Jon realized, with a sinking feeling in his gut, just what exactly it meant that he had killed three of the Fiveskins’ beasts that were wolves.

“And birds?” he asked. 

Varamyr cocked his head. “Never bothered, before. There’s a mighty pull, to soar through the winds and see with eagle eyes… but men have gotten lost in the skies, before.” his mouth thinned into a line. “They never came back down, and forgot what it meant to walk on solid ground.”

Jon nodded slowly, and then glanced at the door. “... And the bear?”

Varamyr laughed sinisterly. “Fierce bitch. She’d kill me and every whoreson for miles if I ever let her completely free; I don’t think she’ll ever be tame. I always keep a piece of me with her.” he grinned, and it seemed savage in the bog fire. “It’s good practice. I’ve grown strong just keeping her on a leash.” 

Jon’ gaze grew uneasy. “And when the Raven tried to take her from you?”

“He would have, if I didn’t already have a hand on her. It was a strength like nothing I’ve ever seen or felt.” Varamyr turned and spat into the fire. “I’ve kept a tighter grip on her since.”

Jon wasn’t comforted by that. He lifted up his mangled hand, whose dexterity had not yet returned to him, and shivered. 

 

* * *

 

Jon stepped out of Moss Hill and took in a deep, filling breath of the dew-filled morning air. He stepped through the thick, slightly springy grass around to the hidden mound where the wildling skinchanger had stored his bog-dirt stockpile, and quickly selected two long, thick bricks from the watertight inner chambers. 

As he returned to the hall, he let out a sharp whistle. A loud cawing answered him, and a small black crow flew from the trees and landed on Jon’s shoulder. After a moment of careful rearrangement, Jon reached into the inside of his cloak with his good hand. It reemerged with a pair of nuts, and the corvid gulped them down greedily as he held it up to his head. 

Jon had discovered the bird after Varamyr had left him some weeks ago to extract tribute from a number of villages. He had woken one morning after snowfall to hear activity on the roof. When he had cautiously gone outside, hunting knife in his good hand, he had found the bird. It had taken hold of a scrap of flat wood with a lip, and to Jon’s great amusement was using that wood as a sled, squawking and cawing as it rode down the white roof. When it reached the bottom, it grabbed the lip of the board in its beak, flew up to the crest of the roof, and did it all over again.

Jon was just as amazed to discover it wasn’t a skinchanger. It was just a regular crow, sledding on his roof. Sledding on his roof for _fun._ He didn’t even know crows could _have_ fun.

Jon slipped his skin and took the bird for his own. He named him Snow the Crow, for how he had met the corvid. If he found any humor in how he was once referred to as the same, he kept it to himself. 

It was a strange sensation to discover the bond between him and Snow the Crow he had forged. The rabbit, who had quickly been cooked and eaten after two more skinchanging events to ensure Jon knew how to exit a body, had left little impact on him. But the more he became the black bird to test the exhilarating feeling of flight, the more he could intuit Snow. Not quite a presence in his mind, but he knew the exact direction Snow was, more often than not. The crow squawked and screeched loudly the first few times he exited him, but with time, and consistent snacks provided, it was almost as it a hole was being carved out, to seat Jon’s presence; it grew easier every time, and now Snow didn’t even call out after he left.

As Snow pecked and preened at the inside of his wing, Jon stepped back through the door of Moss Hill. He shut it behind him, and as Jon carefully arranged the bog bricks over the low smouldering fire, Snow fluttered off his shoulder and onto the end of his bed, chattering aimlessly at everything and nothing. 

Jon returned to his seat with a bowl of rabbit bone broth, simmering and cooking for several days. He took a long, savoring slurp of the soup, and as he let out a satisfied sigh he looked up and met Snow’s pale white eyes. 

Jon stiffened. The eyes faded back to their inky black, but now Jon could feel it - the intuition of his crow’s direction was gone. In its place was a deep, formless resentment. “... Do you mind?” Jon said finally, anger hitching his timbre a note higher. “I’m breaking my fast.” 

“Snow!” 

_Hmm. So crows are able to talk as well._

“I will not be intimidated by my own bird inside a house while I’m eating rabbit broth.” Jon retorted. “What will you do? Try and peck my eyes out? I’ll swat you out of the air with this bowl.”

The bird fell silent, but it’s perch on the bedpost remained far too still for a normal crow.

“Good.” Jon took another long, slow sip of broth; a strong taste of simmered garlic stood out in the spoonful. “Of all the times you’ve killed me, doing it now might be the time that irritated me the most. Here, I’m actually learning something, instead of simply feeling a great ignorant fool over his head.” 

“Live! Live!” 

“Hah.” Jon scoffed. “That’s right. You don’t remember a thing, do you?” the teenager leaned back. “Four times you’ve killed me, and four times I’ve woken up in Winterfell where you have to rediscover that I am a thorn in your side. I haven’t reached your hiding place yet, Raven, but that’s only because I just started looking.” he flashed his teeth in a vicious expression. “I don’t know what you’ve done to the Red God to provoke him, but you’ve certainly provoked me. You won’t take Bran a second time.”

The Greenseer wearing Snow’s skin fell utterly still. 

“Maybe once I kill you, I can finally die like a normal man.” Jon continued, taking another spoonful. “Not likely, though. Since when have the Gods taken heed of who sits the throne? If they did, Aerys would have been smote down, and my mother would not have died in a forsaken Dornish tower.” Jon bared his teeth like a weapon, as if he could cut a man’s heart out with his smile. “But it will feel good to do it. And I’ll do it, as many times as it takes to free myself from this curse, because I won’t let you take my family from me again. So _get out of my crow._ ”

Snow the Crow blinked twice. “Snow! Snow!” 

“GET OUT.”

“Die!”

“If you in _sist_.” Jon was on his feet, hunting knife in hand. The moment he took a step forward, the crow shuddered, and suddenly began squawking wordlessly and skittering all about the room in a cloud of feathers. The boy sighed, and gratefully sheathed his blade. “Snow, it’s alright. He’s gone now.”

The bird continued cawing in a blind panic. Even as Jon pulled a handful of berries from his cloak and scattered them on the floor, Snow the Crow continued to bash around into various pieces of furniture, refusing to be consoled. Jon huffed, and quickly opened the door to the outside before arranging himself on his bed, as his eyes went white.

_At once, he could feel his panic soothe at the familiar weight, though his mind continued to flick about from topic to topic. He could see the one who gave him food and took his wings laying on his back, and a number of berries on the floor. Not one to turn away food, he hopped downwards and snatched them up with a great warbling gobble as he ate._

_The door was open, and he had calmed enough from DANGER DANGER to want to fly,and so with a flap of wings he disappeared out the door in seconds. The sky called to him and flight was his birthright that thrilled a part of him-not-him and so he flapped into the sky, beyond the treeline. He wasn’t a raven, with large and powerful wings to soar and twirl and dive-bomb; he was the small, poor cousin, and he had to constantly work to reach the higher blue that was his calling._

_The sun rose on a cloudless day, and he was lifted higher on the warm air rising, and he let out a series of self-indulgent caws, for he was talkative and wished to find a murder of his kind once again. Off in the distance, a number of faded calls answered, and he readjusted his flight path downwards. The lumbering sound of a beast underneath him shook the trees, but he cared little for the landbound predator, as he continued onwards -_

_Without warning, his head was wrapped in a vice once again, and the sense that he was in DANGER DANGER flooded him in his entirety. The familiar pressure already within him fought back, and as it did he lost control of his wings. As he dropped in fits and starts, the DANGER presence took control of his beak, and began to speak. “SNOW! DIE! SNOW!” he called, without wishing to._

_The lumbering beast underneath him came to a stop. “BASTARD!” a voice called, but he did not care as the presence within him forced itself back into control, and he bega to fly once again. He landed heavily on a branch, and now that he wasn’t in danger of death, he fought even harder-_

Jon screamed as the arrow punctured his breast, and as he fell to the ground, pinion feathers breaking away from all around him, his eyes flashed from white to a pupil-less, bloodshot red, and the world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of meaningless color.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Jon noticed, as something similar to consciousness returned to him, was the lingering taste of savory broth upon his leaden tongue. The second thing he noticed was the weight of a blanket over him, and that his clothes and leathers were still on his body.

The third thing he noticed is that he couldn’t move his limbs. 

A low moan of panic escaped him. His eyes were like weights, but he pushed them open all the same, and the world was too dark. 

“You’re awake.” 

A voice over to his left. Jon slowly, achingly rolled his head to his side, and saw a blurry Varamyr sitting across from him. “You’ve been out for a day and a half.” he said, matter-of-factly. “You’ve come out of your first death sleep quickly, especially for a novice. That’s good. It means you will be strong. You know your way back to your own body already. I’ve known men with years of experience not coming back from their first death sleep before they starved.” 

A sound like footsteps pattered around beyond his sight, and Varamyr leaned forward. “I take it that crow I shot was yours?”

Jon, after a moment of testing his muscles, inclined his head just a fraction. “R’v’n…”

“Tch.” Varamyr turned and spat. “Should have known he wasn’t done with us. I’ll gut him for nearly ruining my path south.” he leaned back. “When you died in the crow, your spirit launched free. You likely don’t remember any of it, but until your spirit reconnected with your body, you were wasting away in what we call the death sleep. It doesn’t always happen, thank the Old Gods, but sometimes a man’s spirit can’t find his way back quickly enough, and it wanders. Dying in a skin has driven men mad before because of the death sleep, if the death was brutal enough; even if you come back to yourself quick enough and remain sane, your body won’t recover fully from it for some time.” 

He folded his arms. “You’ll be functionally useless for at least a week, given your current state, but you’re alive, and your mind hasn’t shattered from the experience, it looks like. Woman!” he shouted. “Get over here!” 

A surprised yell answered him, and from the edges of his vision came a familiar figure. Ynga, the pretty daughter of his former wildling hosts, entered his vision, her hair unbound and in less heavy attire. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her lips were swollen and bruised. 

“You recognize her?” Varamyr asked, grinning. “I bet you do.” he reeled back his hand and swatted her on the butt hard, and she let out a stifled shriek. “I went back to that village because I wanted my cock sucked, and you interrupted me before. You’re lucky I did; I sure as shit wasn’t going to feed you like a mother hen.”

Jon could only muster a foul glare in response. 

“There’s hope for you yet, kneeler!” Varamyr called mockingly. “Unless somebody brutalizes you in a skin, you’ll never have a worse time than your first death sleep! Now, hurry up and get off your ass! You still have work to do!”

 

* * *

 

After two days, Jon was strong enough to function inside of the hall of Varamyr. Strong enough to pull himself along the furniture in a facsimile of walking, capable of feeding himself and not defecating in his own bed. He was also capable of covering his ears and deafening the sound of Ynga being raped in the other room. She never truly resisted him, but when your captor is in perfect command of a half-ton killing machine, the warg didn’t need to say a word for the threat of violence to hang in the air.

It was one of those times, as Jon covered his ears as much as possible while still eating a bowl of broth, that Varamyr returned around the corner, looking supremely satisfied with himself. “Ahhhh. Nothing like a woman’s throat to set your mind at ease.” he proclaimed, swaggering. “You sure you don’t want to try her, Snow? Or is your damn kneeler passiveness getting in the way again?”

Jon felt a flash of hate clench his heart alongside the burning urge to strangle the Wildling for his actions, before schooling his expression. “If I wanted to please myself, I don’t need to force myself on a woman.” 

“Har! Well enough.” Varamyr laughed. “You’re prettier than a girl yourself. You can get a woman to crawl to you on all fours, no doubt.” he set himself down on his wood-hewn bench with a loud breathy exhale. “Still, it matters not to me. A good release might be the trick for you.”

“I’m not going to fuck another man’s wife.” 

Varamyr did a double-take. “You think she’s - HA!” he laughed caustically. “I told you. I went ranging so I could get my cock sucked. I didn’t do it to take a wife.” 

Jon jerked upwards, and now he couldn't hide the fury burning onto his face. “You attacked that village twice for the same woman and brutalized her, and you don’t even have the courage to say you stole a wife? Not even Craster had the gall.”

“Don’t you compare me to that degenerate daughter-fucking would-be Crow.” Varamyr snarled, and laid a hand on his sheathed knife. 

“Even Craster knew to name them his wives after stealing them from his own cradle.” Jon retorted, pushing himself up to sitting position. “Because you know as well as I that a Free woman has the right to slit her husband’s throat if he brutalizes her after the theft. If you intend to simply just throw her back like a too-small _fish-_ ”

Varamyr lunged from across the room and slammed Jon’s back against the clay walls, and braced the knife against the teen’s throat. “One more word out of your fucking kneeler mouth,” Varamyr hissed, “and I’ll slit your throat.”

Jon remained silent, but his eyes burned with unconcealed fury. 

“I’ll not be shackled to a woman with a foul womb.” he hissed. “And I’ll not be lectured by a snot-nosed milkbabe only barely old enough to have a name.” he glanced to the side, to the opening of the middle room of the hall. “I’ll steal a wife when she can prove she can give me the son I want, and not a moment before.”

He turned back. “So I’ll have no more fucking backtalk from you, boy.” 

Jon sneered in response. “Do it, then. Slit my throat, and see your dreams of the Black Gate and the South die with me.”

“You’re not the only way South.” the skinchanger replied. “The Mance is sniffing about, calling himself the King Beyond The Wall. He’ll come to me soon enough, and offer me a place of pride in his army as the greatest warg in a century.” 

“Mance Rayder will fail.” Jon declared, with all the certainty of clairvoyance. “Men such as Qhorin Halfhand and Jeor Mormont will not falter against his army.”

Varamyr’s eyes narrowed. “You speak of the Crows fondly, for a man who claims to not be one.” 

“I know them well. My nuncle is First Ranger.”

Varamyr’s eyes widened, and the knife pulled away from his neck. “You’re a Stark.” remarkably, the wildling slowly stepped back. “Ned Stark of Winterfell.”

“My nuncle.” Jon said. “He raised me as his son.” he resisted the urge to rub his hand across the line on his throat. “I know the tales they tell of Bael the Bard and my family.” 

“Ned Stark is known, even here.” Varamyr slowly sat back down, though the knife was not resheathed. “Then, the brother of yours -”

“In truth, he is my cousin.” he admitted. “Brandon Stark, his son.” 

“Two Starks have the gift…” Varamyr murmured, and he stroked his chin in thought. “Then it may be the blood, after all… how many cousins - siblings, do you have?”

“Five in all. Three boys, two girls.”

“And have any other than you and Brandon shown the gift?”

Jon opened his mouth, then closed it. “... No. I hadn’t considered that was possible.”

“It’s all in the hate.” Varamyr leaned forward, and in the firelight Jon could see the stubble of hair growth across Varamyr’s formerly-bald head, showing brown roots and a deep, deep widow’s peak. “What led your brother to it?”

Jon grimaced, and held his tongue for a long moment. “... He is a cripple.” he said, finally. “He fell from the highest point of Winterfell, and broke his back. He wanted to be a knight - a mighty horse-mounted warrior of the South, and now he will never walk, much less ride again.” 

Varamyr was silent, for a long moment, before speaking. “Aye. that would do it.” he said softly. “Up here, he would have been left to die after an injury such as that.” 

“I know.”

“And the rest of them?” he asked. “No great traumas?”

Jon bit his lip. _Not yet, there aren’t._ “Only that my youngest sister, Arya, is teased as having a horseface.” he grinned a little. “She and I have the long Stark faces, but I’ve had time to grow into it. The others have the Tully look.”

“And what the fuck is a Tully?”

“... Southern lords. You know about the Starks - know that there are seven other lords just as powerful as they, in lands you have never even heard of. The Tullys are one of them.”

Varamyr’s eyes glinted in the firelight. “A Kneeler lady, then. Quite the woman, to have a Greenseer for a son. They say only one man in a thousand is a skinchanger, and only one skinchanger in a thousand is a Greenseer. Old Gods blessed her.” 

He drummed his fingers against the table, dancing less than an inch away from the edge of his knife. “Consider, then, that all of the Stark whelps could slip their skin, and only you and your brother found a reason to do it. The Gift flows in the blood - and the blood of a King Beyond The Wall is mighty indeed.” he smirked. “And this ‘Tully’ blood must be just as good, for five children to have the Gift. Quite the woman… quite the blood.”

Varamyr fell silent, staring into the flickering bog-dirt fire. After a moment, his gaze shifted upwards, and there was a gimlet hardness in them. “... My blood is strong.” he murmured. “Stronger than any man I’ve ever met. I could have been the Sixskins, had you not killed my pack. I’ve not met a man yet to bind more than three beasts to their side.” 

“So why is my seed stunted, and free of magic?”

Jon met his eyes. This was an intensely personal subject, more than Jon had expected to hear from the Wildling. “... I can’t answer that.” he answered. Even in his own life, only Ragnald had shown signs of being able to Warg - now that he knew what he knew, he feared what it was that he had missed in his son to cause him to hate himself. Lyan had remained free of wolf dreams for all her childhood.

“I’ve fucked dozens of women.” Varamyr said, voice low. “Some got with child, when I returned them. Of the ones who weren’t stillborn, all of them were feeble. Half of them died before they traded a milkname for a real one. And none of the survivors have a scrap of power.” his hands tightened into fists. “Old, young, strong, weak, ugly, pretty. Not one of them will give me a son that takes my power, but not my body.”

Jon considered that it was not his time to speak, right now, but the wildling had given him a thread he could not ignore. “Your body?”

Varamyr’s gaze flickered up, filled with anger, but redirected it into the fire. “My power is what gave me hope for life, for I was born sickly. I didn’t take a real name until I was four, and nobody cared for it. Only my own mother called me Varamyr.” his hand wrapped around his knife, and began stabbing small gouges into the table. “Then my brother was born. He was strong. He wouldn’t be remembered only by his milkname. He might have been a skinchanger, too, had he lived.” 

“I _hated_ him.” He hissed. “So I took my father’s dogs and ripped his throat out with my teeth.” Varamyr smiled viciously at the memory. “That was how they found out who I was, and brought me to that old fuck, Haggon.” the tip of the stolen knife fixed into the grain of the wood, and he began rocking it back and forth. 

“But that’s what I want of my sons. If a woman gives me a child like Bump, I’ll steal her. Give me a strong son, with the Gift in his veins. Even if he is weak, if he has the Gift, I will steal her, and she will be as a kneeler lady from across the Wall. Not these - wastes of seed. They don’t deserve to have what I have made. I’ll have a wife who’s proven she can give me what I want, and no other.”

Jon stared at Varamyr from across the room, and as a soft sniffling from the other room was barely audible in the silence, he thought of Samwell Tarly, and the lordly father who had cast him out.

 _He is every bit a Lord as Randyll,_ he thought to himself. _And someday, I know that Varamyr Fiveskins will die on the end of my blade._

“Tch.” Varamyr ripped the tip of his blade from the table and refixed it in his rough leather sheath. “Enough of that. I’m tired of this shit. WOMAN!” He shouted. “Bring the jugs! And two cups!” 

After a moment, Ynga entered the room, carrying a wooden jug with a cap sealed with molded beeswax, and two wooden cups. As soon as she neared, Varamyr snatched the jug from her hands roughly, and cracked the seal of the wax with a single hand as she shakily placed the two cups between the men. Jon met her eyes and smiled with sympathy; her eyes began to tear up, but she said nothing and ducked away. 

“A gift, from a clan under my protection.” Said Varamyr, grinning slightly, as he poured out a light, frothy straw-colored liquid into the two cups. “Take it. I know for a fact it’s the best ale any Free Folk can have for miles.” 

Jon took the cup with gratitude and drank - it was light, crisp, and flavorful, and flowed down the throat easily. He grunted with appreciation, and Varamyr chuckled as he drained half of his cup in a single pull. “Like cream.” Varamyr rumbled. “A dozen jugs from that clan every time I visit. I often kept a wolf prowling that clan’s land alone - no jumped-up Flintaxe or Hornfoot will touch them as long as they keep making me this ale. Drink.”

Jon did, until a stray thought struck him. “... Your old clan.” he began. “What happened to it? Is it still around?”

Varamyr snorted. “No. They are not.” He bared his teeth in a savage grimace. “When I became a man grown, and took that bitch I mount for myself, I went back to that clan and killed every single man and woman who ever called me Lump. She developed a taste for manflesh, then.” His eyes flashed up to Jon’s frozen expression. “Now, the only ones alive who know that name are my own mother… and you.”

Jon carefully schooled his expression. _So that’s why he told me all of his story. He doesn’t intend to let me live, either._ “I’ll remember that… Varamyr Sixskins.”

Varamyr grunted once, and drained the rest of his cup in reply.

 

* * *

 

_“Better a quick death. They won’t last long without their mother.”_

_“Right, give it here.”_

_“NO!”_

_“Stay your blade.”_

_“I take orders from your father, not you.”_

_“Father, please!”_

_“... I’m sorry, Bran.”_

_“Noooooooo!”_

Jon awoke screaming. “NOOOOO!”

“FUCK!” Varamyr cursed, jerking upright. “Bastard! My head…”

Jon’s head was pounding as well, for they had drained the entirety of the ale jug between them, but he refused to be dissuaded. “I’LL KILL HIM!” He screamed. “I’ll kill that squid bastard for this! He’ll die SCREAMING!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you!?” 

“THEY WEREN’T HIS!” Jon roared. “THEY WEREN’T HIS TO KILL! THEY WERE OURS!” he pushed himself to his feet without thought, and immediately regretted it as his legs gave out underneath him and he collapsed to the floor, slamming his head against the furniture. “HELLS!”

“Shut the FUCK up!” Varamyr shouted, attempting to reach for Jon’s throat while clutching his head and eyes at the same time. “Ooogh… too fucking loud…”

Jon grit his teeth, and pulled himself up onto the bed with his arms. His mind was whirring. “Varamyr… is it possible to enter another skin, while you’re already wearing one? To jump from one body to another?”

“What- why in the Children’s name do you -”

“ _Is it possible?_ ”

[“Yes, but-”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCRgNl6h66c)

Jon’s eyes went white, collapsing backwards onto the bed - 

 

* * *

 

_He was hungry, and he was cold. The world was blurry in his sight and he legs were weak underneath him. From a part of him that he did not know but felt as much a part of him as his paw, he knew that his eyes had opened too early and he needed to feed often. He needed to find his mother._

_The big ones had gone away, and the forest was silent, but he had fallen down a small muddy slope into the river. He squirmed around until his legs were underneath him again, and he pushed himself into a wobbly stand. Every step he took had the potential to send him tumbling, but that familiar part of himself gave him balance and a strength that was external to him, and he toddled upwards on the slope._

_The mud gave out underneath him, and he slipped muzzle-first into the muck. His nose was hurting, now, but he forced his way back to his feet, and with steps even more considered than before, he worked his way to even ground._

_A foul smell greeted him, and part of him wanted to avoid the smell because he instinctively knew the stench of rot, but his other half pushed onwards towards the smell. It was only after his nose bumped into soft belly-fur that he realized what this was, and he immediately began to root for a nipple. The rest of his pack was gone (_ Don’t think about that, _his other half whispered) and what should have been a struggle against other warm bodies was over near instantly. He began to give suck, and his hunger began to lessen -_

_His other half left him, and the world grew colder and foggier - he had thoughts beyond his own when his other half was there but now he was alone and he was cold and hungry and his mother was not waking up. He pulled away from the nipple and began to shiver; where his brothers and sisters would have mewled and yelp, he remained silent. He didn’t want to be alone, but he was alone and he was scared._

_The milk eventually went away no matter how hard he gave suck, and a small part left over my his other half said that maybe that wasn’t supposed to happen. But his hunger was no longer satisfied, and his mother did not react even when his bit down with his hard gums. He pulled his head away and waddled himself around, pushing his body further into the still body of his mother to claim heat. She was too cold, and the stench only grew stronger as the sun moved through the sky, but he did it anyways, and closed his eyes, waiting for his other half to please come back._

_The sun moved further through the sky and still his other half did not return; he was hungry again. He curled up in a tighter ball and attempted not to shiver._

_A long howl pierced the sounds of the forest around him. It was close - very close. He opened his red eyes once again to watch the world outside his mother’s body._

_From atop the ridge, a wolf appeared. It was a female, and her belly was swollen and hanging low in the way that one who had recently whelped did. Her body language expressed nothing, but her eyes had locked onto him almost immediately, and trotted down into his weak field of vision. He felt a pair of teeth latch onto his neck, and he writhed in response, but instead of breaking through the skin, the she-wolf placed him back on the ground feet-first, and then grabbed him by the baggy skin on the back of his neck._

_He was carried that way for a distance - how far, he did not know, for his weak eyes had grown tired partway through and he had closed them - but a soft growl from the she-wolf alerted him that something was happening. He opened his eyes and steadied himself as he was placed on the ground, and his ears caught the whimpers and yelps of other pups mere feet away. The wolf mother had brought him to her den._

_As she laid down on her side, and he began to root for her nipple without protest, his other half returned in a burst of revelation._ Your name is Ghost, _his other half whispered._ And I love you.

_Ghost’s other half faded._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. um. The script for the final episode was leaked to the internet. And, uh… holy shit. I understand why Kit had to go into therapy after he was done. This is fucking atrocious. They literally called Daenerys ‘Her Satanic Majesty’ in the direction notes, and stated that Jon and Sansa were dumbfounded by Arya’s ‘WhAt’S wEsT oF wEsTeRoS’ quip because, and I quote, ‘they both failed geography.’
> 
> And this is the shit that they think deserves an EMMY. this is the shit that got NOMINATED for an emmy.
> 
> There is no justice in this world if these people still have a career after this. They need to be driven out of hollywood on a rail, tarred and feathered.
> 
> Speaking of feathers, Snow the Crow. RIP to the homie. I did some research into crows and ravens, and they are simply delightful. One of the only species on earth that can not only use tools, but MAKE tools for their own ends. Researchers say that they probably have the general intelligence of a 7-year-old human, and I know some pretty smart 7 year olds. Considering George appears to have buffed the general specifics of the corvid species for plot reasons… crows are great here.
> 
> Took me a while longer than I was expecting to write this chapter, but we’re moving along at a good clip. Part of the problem was trying to figure out how to accurately portray Varamyr as the very bad man that he is, without turning him into a mustache-twirling villain. Part of that is the reason for the involvement of Ynga, who I didn't expect to bring back the moment we left Cliffsedge; I expect to get a little heat for that, so I put up some warnings to make sure you're not surprised. This is A Song of Ice And Fire, though - horrifying brutality is baked into the setting, and you guys should already know that.
> 
> Things are starting to pick up now, though. Thanks to all of you who are blowing this story up. 500 kudos before we’ve even cracked 10k hits. You all really like this, huh? Share it around if you really like it. I always appreciate new readers, and I love chatting with you guys in the comments, so always feel free to speak up if you want to ask or say something. Thanks so much.


	9. Life Five: Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remembering how we got to this point.

Jon opened his eyes, rolled onto his side and immediately vomited the remnants of his meal from the night before onto the dirt floor.

“What the - augh!” Varamyr’s head snapped back as if physically struck, from where he had poked it out around the doorframe. “Fucking - Hells!”

“Oh, Gods…” Jon moaned, his bad hand slowly covering his face. His eyes were swollen and crusted, and his body was burning with fever. A stray thought passed through his mind that he was hungry, and needed to find his mother’s nipple; another, stronger thought followed that he needed to find more prey so that the pups could be fed.

“If you were going to do that the moment you came back, I would have _preferred_ if you got fucking trapped.” Varamyr groused, as he walked around the edge of the doorway belting up his pants. He gingerly stepped over the mostly-liquid putrescence and threw open the door, wafting his arms from inside to out in a futile attempt to ventilate the hall. “WOMAN! Carry him outside. I need to shovel this dirt before it starts to stink.”

After a moment, Ynga appeared around the corner and moved to Jon’s bed. With a gentle touch, she helped him onto his feet, and with an arm around her shoulders, she walked the teenager out of the hall and into the open air. “Are you alright?” she asked, quietly.

“... No. But I will be.” he murmured. “And you?”

“... No.” she looked away. “But I will be.”

The silence dragged on, punctuated by Varamyr’s cursing from inside the hall. Finally, Jon spoke again. “I… I am sorry, that I could not protect you from… him.”

“You fought a shadowcat by yourself to protect me.” she said, and smiled weakly. “If he were any other man, that would have been enough. But when he appeared in person…” her smile slipped. “If we had known it was only him and his bear, we could have killed him then and there.”

“And give up your shield?” Jon asked, as he wiped the bile from his lips with his forearm.

“Without his beasts, he isn’t shielding us anyways.” Ynga replied. “He won’t let me leave until he’s tamed more of them. We’d kill him if we found out he was lying to us.” she smiled sadly. “We would be forced to leave that village, but we would be true Free Folk once again.”

Jon smiled thinly. Ynga gently lifted her hands away from his body, and although the world swiveled about underneath his feet, he stayed upright underneath his own power. “You’re getting better.” she said, with a forced happiness. “That’s great.”

“Then he can stop being a layabout and start earning his keep again.”

The two flinched hard as Varamyr appeared with a bucket in hand and threw the contents out in a spray of vomit-scented dirt. The small man flung the wooden bucket back inside as he did and folded his arms. “And just what in the ever-winter hells did you think was so important that you decided to fucking chain for?”

“Chain?”

“Jumping from one skin to another.” Varamyr answered. “Powerful skill, but half the men mad enough to try it die because you break the bonds to your own flesh.” he sneered. “You chain to the second skin, and when you come back, you return to the first, only to find there’s no way back to your own meat. You find you’re in your second life whether you’re ready to die or not.”

Jon paled. Being trapped in a newborn’s skin until all memory of being human faded… “How do you know this?”

“How does a grown man know anything?” said Varamyr. “I tried it myself when I was young and stupid like you. I was nearly trapped in a wolf. I had to skinchange into my own damn body before the wolf forced me to forget how.” he flashed a vicious grin, his yellowed teeth seeming too sharp for his mouth in that instant. “I’ve never been the same.”

 _The Three-Eyed Raven knew how to do it_ , Jon thought to himself. _A blackheart like him would not risk a threat like that if there was a half-chance he could not return._

“I’ll ask again,” Said Varamyr, “Since you didn’t answer me, boy. What was so important that you risked chaining?”

Jon pursed his lips, carefully considering his words; he hadn’t forgotten his insight into the warg’s motives. “Saving a life.” he answered slowly. “Below the Wall.”

Varamyr snorted in disbelief. “I told you not to lie to me again, boy.” he raised his hand to strike him - and paused, before Jon had the time to flinch away. “... You woke from a dream. You saw your life needing saving in a wolf dream.” his eyes grew wide. “You have wolf dreams from below the damned Wall.”

“... Yes. I do.”

“Others take my bones. What _do_ they feed you kneeler lords?” Varamyr lowered his hand, and stared at him with a cautious look in his eyes. “You’ve had a beast bound to your side since before you could even slip your own skin. That’s the work of the Gods.”

“... Our house sigil. He’s been with me since he was a pup.”

The two men stood there, staring at each other, up to the point that Jon threw a hand to his mouth and dry-heaved through his fingers. “Har!” Varamyr laughed. “Whatever you ate in you other skin isn’t agreeing with you, Stark!” he kicked at the scattered puke-dirt with his toe, covering it further. “You’ll be well enough to walk tomorrow. You’ll bring me my new skins, now.” his eyes narrowed in a vicious glare. “I’ve allowed the Three-Eyed Raven to live long enough.”

* * *

  _“Papa?”_

_“Yes, sweetling?”_

_“Make the winter go away, please? I don’t like it.”_

_“None of us like it. But you’re a tough girl. Did you know you were born in the worst winter in a thousand years? They called it the Long Night.”_

_“Heehee. I know, papa! You beat the Others!”_

_“Yes, that’s right! I beat them all, with just me and Ghost there. That’s why he’s missing an ear, because he had to bite the King of the Others very hard.”_

_“Nunca Tormund sez ‘e rode a dragon!”_

_“That’s right, Ragnald. A big black dragon, as big as the wall, named Drogon. He could breathe a stream of fire as thick as a tree, and he rode him. There was another dragon, named Rhaegal, and I rode him.”_

_“You shouldn’t be filling their heads with wild tales, Snow.”_

_“Nothing but the truth of the bards. I’m having too much fun.”_

_“Keep squawking like a crow, and I’ll have to come over there and pluck your feathers.”_

_“... Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep, love.”_

_“... Sweetlings? Why don’t you go help with the fires. Your papa and I have to… talk.”_

_“Yes, mama.”_

_“Papa? Wher’re drogon and ragal now?”_

_“They… are across the sea. They had to go back home to Valyria. But maybe, if you go outside and shout loud enough, they will come back and scare away winter. Can you do that, Ragnald?”_

_“I can do it! RHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”_

Jon jerked awake silently, with his heart pounding in his throat and tears pricking the corners of his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut as the birdsong around him heralded the morning.

With a few soft grunts he pulled himself from his wolfskin bedroll, slung the bow over his back, and stepped outside of his cave to relieve his bladder. He had been ranging for two days away from Moss Hill, and had created a camp inside a former bear’s den. Jon knew the area he had traveled to well enough, once Varamyr had informed him on a crude map where his hall was located; the area was lush with game, and consequently a favored hunting ground for predators, beast and bird alike.

After taking care of his morning business, and feeding on fire-roasted pheasant, he set out. He had regained some movement in his fingers of his ruined hand, which was a relief - he likely wouldn’t ever be able to hold a dagger or shield in his left hand again in this life, but for pulling a bowstring, it was more than enough.

After about an hour of searching, he finally found what he was looking for - A fresh deer carcass, lying in the thin snow of the forest floor. To his eyes, it wasn’t more than half a day old, and obviously had been mauled by a wolf. With a slow shuffle, Jon dipped his fingers into the congealed blood and dabbed it across his forehead, cheeks and the dent of his throat, before settling into scrub-brush. He wasn’t particularly eager to coat himself entirely in the dead scent, so he hoped it would mask him just long enough for a beast to approach.

The sun was high in the sky before any creature approached the carrion. A young wolf, mottled grey, thin and small enough to mark it as a female. She approached the carrion softly, and Jon waited softly in the bushes, thinking of a young boy stabbing through his heart. When she lowered her head to the meat, Jon took that burning loathing and _pushed_.

_The world exploded into scents unknown to man. Beneath her, the smell of flesh left by a larger beast made an appetizing meal for a lone wolf such as herself, but she would not eat it, for a part of her was screaming and howling wordlessly in fear and rage. She walked away from the carcass and approached a brush - and now she could smell it, another beast hidden by a weak scent of blood. She stalked slowly towards it, half from caution and half because part of her snapped and howled and resisted her lifting her legs with every step._

_With a shove of her nose, she rolled the new thing over, and saw that it was still alive, breathing slowly with white eyes._ You belong with me now, _said a voice, but part of her knew nothing of voices and yowled in fear even as her body remained silent. After a moment, she closed her eyes._

_-The thing was standing now and he was stroking her fur and a lump of flesh dangled from his open hand and she howled and bit and tore against a beast as he lashed with a claw that shone like darkling ice and she was surrounded by a pack that she did not know but she could feel in her bones was hers and she was warm and full -_

Jon let out a loud inhaling gasp as he was forced out, and a canine yelp next to his side streaked away. With a mad scramble, he stood himself up, watching the lone wolf streak off into the forest. “Shit.” he cursed. He had learned with Snow the Crow that some creatures were smart enough to understand the meaning behind speech, as he had been. When that failed, however, almost all could grasp the meaning behind visions and emotions. He hadn’t counted on it spooking the wolf, though.

With a scowl, Jon stood up from his spot. Nobody would be coming to the carcass for hours, now that both he and the wolf had tracked scent all over the place. With a sigh, he began walking again.

After an hour’s walk, the trees thinned for a moment, and a small cliff opened before him. Jon scowled, and reached for a drumstick of smoked rabbit to replenish himself before searching for a way down. Before he did, however, a soft screech broke the silence. Jon blinked, and quickly swiveled his head to locate the source - he had recognized the sound, and sure enough, an eagle swooped past him and down through past the edge of the cliff.

Jon grinned. He knew the eagles beyond the Wall - they had a brown-gold plumage, nested in crags and bluffs and the sides of cliffs, and were indisputably the masters of the skies. Given just how large the one he had just seen had been, she must have been a female, closer to fifteen pounds than ten. With a slow economy of motion, he removed a small weave of twine and moss he had been using as a net for rabbits and spread it across the ground.

With that done, he sat himself down with his back to a great pine, and dreamed of a black knight who had promised he would have done it all again -

_At once, she could see farther than was even thought possible, as she scratched a furrow in the nest of twigs and branches. Individual blades of grass many yards away were as easily seen as her own breastfeathers, and part of her exulted in the simple experience. After a time, she spread her wings slowly and took to flight, and her body was only marginally hindered by part of it resisting. With a few powerful flaps of her wings, she was over the cliff-edge and soaring towards a two-legged creature lying against a tree._

_She landed gracefully, and had her claws snag in a mesh of moss and fiber. It was easily escaped, but instead of flying away, she dug her talons in deeper, and wrapped her legs around the fiber in circles. After a few moments of this, she flapped her wings again, and was pulled down to the ground by the wrappings. With a satisfied screech, far more tinny and weak than would be expected from such a powerful hunter as her, she released -_

Jon snapped back to himself as the eagle immediately began thrashing about in a fit of rage, unable to free herself. The Northerner leapt to his feet with only a modicum of dizziness and grabbed the net, hauling it upwards. The eagle dangled upside down, and it thrashed it’s wings and feet about for a few moments more, and then went still. It wasn’t the stillness of sleep or relaxation - the eagle’s mouth gaped open, and it’s eyes were wide, and it’s wings were tensed outwards as if halfway into flapping away.

Jon snorted involuntarily at the absurd attempt at playing dead, and quickly extended the edges of the net so that it met over the raptor’s head, before setting it back down. Just as the bird inside began to slightly move, Jon pushed -

 _Her legs were trapped and the two-legged beast had grabbed her, but now she was upright once again. With careful movements, she wriggled her talons out of the twine until she could walk freely inside the dark area. She could not see more than a few motes of light filtering through, but she could hear the two-legged’s breathing close by._ Human _, whispered a part of her, and now instead of darkness, she could_ SEE.

 _She could see herself soaring through the skies, above the forests, until a sharp, shrill noise caught her attention; she immediately banked, and plummeted to the ground to meet the two-legged (_ HUMAN _, she whispered_ ) _and alighted on it’s outstretched limb. He cooed meaningless words to her and held out a giblet of meat, which she snatched away and gobbled down as he stroked her feathers. She did not attack it, and did not peck out it’s eyes or gouge her talons into its fist, and gently allowed it to place a hood over her head, returning the world to darkness._

Jon returned to himself with a start, and immediately focused on the trussed bird - the eagle wasn’t visible through the coat of moss that normally disguised the net, but even still the net wasn’t moving or thrashing about. With a small grin of excitement, Jon reached into his bag and pulled out a piece of cooked rabbit; it wasn’t raw, the preferable way to feed predators like the eagle, but it would do in a pinch. Clenching it in one hand, he gently untied the net.

The eagle exploded outward with a flurry of feathers as soon as the net dropped, flying away into the sky. Jon grinned even wider, opened the palm with the meat wide, and pictured his First Steward telling him fearfully that _you shouldn’t be alive-_

 _A part of her returned, and she wheeled in the sky several times before reaching a point that she could soar. She turned to look where she had come from, and the two legge- human, was lying still against a tree. In his outstretched hand was a giblet of meat._ Take it _, whispered a part of her. She let out a screech and folded her wings, diving back down to the ground. With a slow waddle, she walked closer to the hand-_

Jon returned to himself, and turned to stare at the bird. It immediately flinched back, fluffing its wings and rearing its head back to peck, but it didn’t take to wing again. He ground his fingers together, tearing away a fleck of meat under his gloved thumb, and bounced it forward. The eagle paused, then stumbled forward and picked it off the ground to eat. Another string torn off and thrown, this time closer, and it ate that piece too.

Then Jon readjusted the lump of flesh to the top of his fist, and lowered his arm to the ground. The eagle bobbed its head as it stared at the meat, and then Jon’s face, and back at the meat. The moment stretched out, like a musical note hanging in the air that would not fade.

The eagle took to wing, its span nearly as wide across as Jon was at the shoulder, and crossed the distance, landing on his wrist and digging it’s talons into the leather of his glove. Jon held back the irresistible urge to whoop with triumph as it bent down and plucked the meat from his fist, gobbling it up in seconds. It was only when he was able to reach with his free hand and gently, oh-so-gently, stroke her golden-brown plumage without more than a fiery glare, that Jon’s grin split his face in two.

“You’re going to be wonderful.” Jon whispered to the nameless eagle, stroking it’s plumage.

_After all, eagles hunt and kill ravens._

* * *

It took Jon another three days to return to Moss Hill, with the sun sinking low in the pale sky. The eagle slowed him down, mostly; Jon knew from experience that to have such a well-behaved bird was a feat all but the most skilled of falconers would be envious of, but even so, she demanded constant attention and training. It was only when she was taught to perch on his shoulder when he was wearing his thick fur cloak, instead of constantly perching on his fist, that he began to make close to regular speed again.

When the hall of logs, mud and moss came into sight, Jon let out a small sigh of relief. He approached the door and slammed it twice with his fist. “I’ve returned.” He called.

A moment of shuffling inside, and Varamyr opened up. “You’re not dead.” he smirked. “Well done for a one-handed man.” He stepped outside and glanced around, frowning. “I see no beasts. Are you simple, boy?”

Jon immediately pivoted to the faint intuition of the eagle. “She’s over there.” he pointed.

“She?”

Instead of answering, Jon put his fingers to his lips and let out a shrill whistle. The sound carried through the air, hanging, until it was answered by a piercing scream. Varamyr’s eyes lit up as the golden-brown eagle soared over the treetops and dove towards the two, and as Jon held out his bad arm, she landed on it with grace.

“... Hells.” Varamyr breathed. “Look at the size of her. She’s a killer.” he reached out a hand to her, but the eagle immediately snapped it the offending digits, and he withdrew them with inches to spare. “Fierce bitch!” he laughed, and his eyes were shining with glee.

“I’ve taught her well enough that a hand that feeds her is a hand to be trusted.”

“Learned that trick already, have you?” Varamyr grinned. “If I didn’t know for a fact you couldn’t escape your skin, I’d call you a liar for saying you couldn’t warg.” he lifted his hand and pointed past Jon’s shoulder. “And that one, there. Is that your beast, too?”

“What beast?” Jon pivoted to follow the finger. There, at the very edge of the treeline, was a glimmering, moonlit pair of eyes and a mottled grey snout. “... No.” Jon said, amazed. “I thought that one ran away.”

“The bear brought back a half-eaten stag. I’ll throw the neck meat out to keep her occupied until I’m ready to take her properly.” Varamyr stepped back inside, and Jon followed. The warg disappeared into the back rooms, headed to where jon knew there was a butchery table, and within a minute came back with the severed head of a yearling stag. With a loud call, he flung the head outside, before closing the door and turning towards the bird. “There. Now…”

He carefully inched forward, before taking his seat across from Jon and the raptor; his mouth was fixed in a halfway grin. “What are her needs? I’ve never taken an eagle before.”

“Raw meat, and regular flights. If you wish to transport her far without her taking to wing, you’ll need to create a hood to block her sight.” Jon replied, pulling from his half-remembered conversations with a wildling falconer in his clan. “For one as big as this, a pound of meat a day will sustain her. They will eat anything - fish, game, other birds, carrion. They’ll even fight hogs if they’ve the advantage.” he gently stroked the plumage of her neck. “I’ve broken her of her need to protect her kills - she knows that if I take her rabbit, I will give it back in bite-sized pieces.”

“Useful trick, ain’t it?”

“I know kennel trainers who would kill for the skill.” Jon admitted. “It took six months to break Ghost of the habit while he was still a pup, and I’ve now done the same in three days.”

“Now comes teaching them to attack on command, without accepting humans as prey.” Varamyr grinned. “Rather trickier lesson, that.” he held out his gloved fist in an expectant manner, and Jon reluctantly met that fist with his own. After the eagle had waddled across the breach onto Varamyr’s fist, the two sat down, with the wildling flicking his fingers near the bird’s face and it snapping at the digits in reply. _He’s more gentle with an animal than he is with any human._

“You’ve brought me a fine gift, Jon Snow.” said Varamyr. “Well done. The day they call me Varamyr Godkiller is now on the horizon, with a bird like this serving as my eyes.”

Jon frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“Say what?”

“Varamyr Godkiller. The Three-Eyed Raven isn’t a God.”

Varamyr snorted. “And what kind of tales does a southron boy possibly know of the Raven, hmm? None, that’s what.”

“The Free Folk say he’s a servant of the Old Gods, and the Children of the Forest.” Jon countered, folding his arms. “He was bound to the Weirwood, and in exchange for servitude, they granted him eternal life and Greenseeing.”

Now Varamyr Threeskins stared at Jon, a narrow glint to his eyes. “That’s not the tale I was told, though there’s the ring of a bard’s truth to yours.” he gently maneuvered the nameless eagle onto a bedpost, and leaned forward, he face growing shadowy in the bog-fire. “Now, I’ll tell you mine.”

* * *

_In the days of our ancestors, when the Wall was not built and men still knew the Names of the Old Gods, there lived a tree. It was the first tree, but it was a mean, twisted, hateful thing, its wood pale like bone and its leaves red like blood; Taller than a mountain, and a face like a curse. This tree could speak through its face, and it could pull up it’s roots like a skirt and tread the world like a man. Wherever it’s leaves fell, a new tree sprouted, and wherever its fruit fell, a new beast sprung forth._

_This tree hungered for flesh and blood and bone, and demanded that Men sacrifice their kin to it. The men of those days cursed it, and pleaded with the Old Gods by name to aid them, but the Hungry Tree was beloved as kin to the Old Gods, and so they were silent._

_And so men sacrificed their kin to the Hungry Tree, and hung their entrails on it’s branches for it to feast as it walked. Some did so willingly, and with great joy gave up their sons and daughters; the Old Gods blessed them, and blessed them with twice as many children as they gave. Others did so grudgingly, and the Old Gods only repaid them with a new child for every two they gave._

_In those times, there was a King in the North, whose name was not Stark, and who had a single daughter who he loved dearly. The Hungry Tree came to him and demanded his daughter. The King in the North refused, and the Old Gods cursed him for refusing their Hungry Tree, and took his daughter by force and hung her entrails from its branches. The King in the North raged and wept bitter tears, and went to war. He took the bones from his daughter and forged a mighty ax, and from her hair he wound a black rope._

_When the Hungry Tree roamed south, he tied one end of the rope to the tallest mountain of the Frostfangs, and the other end to the tip of the Antler River. And when the Hungry Tree walked north once more, it tripped and fell on the rope, for the King in the North had wound it with his own blood. When it fell to the ground with a mighty sound, he took the axe and chopped the tree to pieces, and he ate the fruit of the tree greedily._

_The people cheered and praised him, for no longer would they have to sacrifice their children, but the Old Gods raged, for they loved the Hungry Tree like kin. They cursed the land, and where fragments of the Hungry Tree fell, new trees sprung just like it, with pale wood and red leaves and faces like curses, and where the leaves fell creatures sprung molded of wood._

_The King in the North, whose name was not Stark, fled the North, and the pale trees and the wood-children chased him forevermore, wherever there was a green thing to haunt him. But the King had eaten of the fruit of the Hungry Tree, and would live for eternity, so the Old Gods cursed him again to never again have his name or be remembered. And the people swore bloody oaths, that until the King came back, so they would never have another King, and as long as they could not remember his name, so too would they not remember the names of the Old Gods. When their names were forgotten, the Old Gods left, and merely watched the world through the faces of the Hungry Tree’s bones._

_The Hungry Tree hung the entrails of many humans and beasts on it’s branches, but there was one that it never did - a Raven that sat in its branches, and feasted on its fruit, who was too small and clever for the Hungry Tree to catch. When the King in the North chopped down the Hungry Tree, the Raven flew away, seeking one as wise as it. One day, it found a boy with only one eye, and the Raven knew the boy was just as wise as him. The Raven flew down the boy’s gullet and wore his skin, and taught his village its secrets, of how to see through the bones of the Hungry Tree and to take skins the way the Raven had taken the Boy’s skin._

_The people loved the boy, but when the boy grew old and died, the Raven burst from his skin, wearing the boy’s only eye on its forehead, and flew down the gullet of another girl. When the people realized that the Raven would not die, for it had eaten of the fruit of the Hungry Tree also, they killed the girl and tore the Raven out of her._

_But the Raven was clever, and flew away, looking to find more young children. But many had heard of it, and so turned it away - only the naughty children who didn’t listen to the stories paid heed to the Raven, and got their skin stolen in return. And so now mothers warn their children to always listen to the stories, for if they don’t pay attention, they might get their skin stolen by the Three-Eyed Raven._

* * *

 

The bog-fire crackled softly as Varamyr trailed off into silence.

“A milkbabe’s story.” Jon said softly, though he had a chill in his bones.

“Aye. I heard it from my mother when I was in my fifth year. It has the cadence of a bard’s truth. In other words, mostly bullshit.” replied Varamyr. He had gathered a jug of his favored ale during the story, and slowly took a sip of his cup to wet his throat. “But given what you say is true, can you say it is wholly a lie?”

“... No. I cannot.”

“If the Raven is immortal, or something close to it, then that’s as good a god as anything.” Varamyr said. “They’ve called him the Last Greenseer since my grandfather. It’s not because he’s the only one left - your Bran puts that to the lie.” He leaned forward. “It’s because he will BE the last. When the world is ash and dust, and the Others take us all to an icy grave, he’ll still be here, seeing through the eyes of the Weirwoods, the Hungry Tree’s bones.”

Jon clenched his fist tightly. “Not when I’m through with him.”

“Har.” Varamyr laughed, and repositioned himself so his back was securely supported. “Now, let’s go take a look…”

His eyes rolled upwards to pure white, and he slumped downwards slightly. Jon slowly positioned a wooden cup for himself and poured a glass of the ale for himself. He lifted it, toasted it silently to the eagle, and drank it, as the wolf outside howled in victory.

* * *

Jon was outside, stripped down to his woolen shirt and leather breaches and sweating fiercely as he attacked a makeshift training dummy he had assembled with his sword, when Varamyr slammed open the door. “Get yourself presentable. We have somebody coming.”

Jon lowered the longsword tip to the ground, and wiped at his face with his forearm. “You saw them?” he asked, getting his breathing under control.

“Around two or three miles out. Saw them through a break in the trees.” Varamyr answered. “They’re headed straight towards us. They look like the Mance’s men.”

“The Mance?” Jon’s blood chilled. “Mance Rayder?”

“That’s him.” Varamyr replied. “One of them had Breakspear furs, and I know the Breakspears joined him months ago. The other two I didn’t recognize.” he smiled, with a cut-glass quality to it. “They finally remembered me.”

Jon knew why they were coming. They were coming to recruit Varamyr to attack the wall, but they were bringing everybody along with them. An exodus from the north, to flee the dead that did not die.

_I forgot about the White Walkers. I’ve been so fixated on the Three-Eyed Raven, and solving my curse, that I forgot about the damned Army of the Dead._

And now Mance Rayder was coming to them. The King-Beyond-The-Wall. His Goodbrother.

Val didn’t talk much about her sister Dalla, who had married Mance. She told him she was kind, with soft pale eyes and wisdom about her. Mance had loved her dearly, and honored Val in return. And she had died in the birthing of his son, the night of the battle of Castle Black; the son had died shortly after. Val mourned them both.

Jon was abruptly drawn out of his musings by a harsh slap upside the back of his head. “AGH!”

“Bring your head back to your feet!” Varamyr barked. “I want you clean, and ready.”

Jon grimaced and rubbed the back of his head. “Clean, I understand, but ready? Ready for what?”

“Ready for what could happen when I tell them no.”

Jon went still. He knew the tenacity of Mance when it came to this army. The Thenns still told stories a decade after his death of how Styr, the Magnar who had led the Thenns into the Ice-River’s cannibalism, had to be defeated three times in a single day before he swore to the King-Beyond-The-Wall. “They’ll not give up. Mance wants every living man in his army.”

“I’d have humored him if the Mance himself came to my door.” Varamyr jeered. “But he sends a trio of lackey would-be kneelers. I have you, and your Black Gate. I don’t need the Mance.”

Jon frowned, but let the matter drop, dipping inside the hall to grab hold of the bone-bladed body scraper. It certainly wasn’t a nobleman’s preferred way of cleaning themselves, running the dull hook across their skin until the dirt had come away and leaving their skin burning pink, but he’d grown used to it both on the Wall and beyond. The Wall was actually preferred, in truth; the Reach was required to tithe shipments of olive oil, which had the effect of greatly softening the filth when rubbed into the skin and making it easier to remove. Such luxury was reserved to those who survived a Ranging, or had performed particularly well at their duties.

After cleansing and reclothing himself, Jon kept himself busy. He wasn’t sure what the messengers would do when refused. More importantly, he didn’t know what the Threeskins would do when they refused his refusal. He made a point of secreting Ynga away from the front hall, and took up a seat at the door. His eyes bled into white -

_She was padding silently through the forest when a part of her pulled elsewhere. On swift paws she darted through the trees, seeking the scent of intruders. Men-things were intruding on her new territory, she knew, and while she wasn’t to attack, she would make it known that they weren’t alone._

_It did not take long to find them - it almost seemed as though they were deliberately taking the loudest path possible. Without fear, she stepped into their way, and the lead man let out a shout of startled fear. He reached for a spear across his back before the one behind him grabbed his hand. “Wait!” the man-thing shouted. “This one is different. Look at it.”_

_“Bugger off.” the lead replied, but he allowed his hand to be led away from his weapon. She merely stood there, matching their gaze without fear._

_“We’re here to talk with the Fiveskins.” the middle man continued. “We speak for the King-Beyond-The-Wall.”_

_She didn’t understand those words, but a part of her did, and she bobbed her head once. The one at the back let out a relieved sigh, before she pivoted and paced confidently forward; she could hear the three man-things following behind her, in a much less obnoxiously loud manner._

_She led on, for more than an hour, before the clearing of her man-thing den appeared. The small, sickly one stood there, draped in the hide of a shadowcat, his head-fur freshly scraped to the flesh and arms folded. She turned to meet the eyes of the three wildlings -_

Jon returned to himself with a soft inhalation, before slowly fumbling his way to a standing position. A small, nagging sensation told him that his balance was all wrong, that his spine was too straight and that he would be better served on all fours, but he shoved away the remnant viciously. “Stay out of sight, Ynga.” He called. “We don’t know if they’ll take guest rights.”

A moment later, the door opened, and Varamyr entered with the three wildlings. “Boy.” he called. “Bring us food. They will partake.”

“Your son?” asked the one with the spear.

“Hardly.” Varamyr replied, as Jon quickly brought wooden bowls and set them beside the brass cookpot. “He learns from me.”

The three wildlings gathered the bowls, dipped them into the rabbit bone broth, and took small, ceremonial sips. With the sacred hospitality now observed, they sat down. “You come from the Mance, then.” Varamyr said without preamble. “Get on with it, then. Speak his words.”

“Mance Rayder is now King-Beyond-The-Wall to five-and-sixty different clans.” said the middle one, who Jon noted had shaved the sides of his head and let his scalp grow wild, like the mane of a horse. “He knows you hold sway with a dozen more, and are a skilled skinchanger besides. He would ask that you join him, to defeat the crows and break the Wall forever.”

“He can have the clans.” Varamyr answered. “I care little about them, now. My eyes are set further north.”

The three looked askance at each other. “Going north is to go to death.” said the one with the spear. “Winter descends, and brings horrors with it. All who live past the Valley of the Thenns are gone, and any who leave their dead unburned risk the Others.”

“Others take your Others.” Varamyr snapped. “I’ve set my sights on hunting one set of make-believe monsters. I’ll not have you add to the pile.”

“It’s not make-believe.”

Varamyr went still.

“It’s not make-believe.” Jon repeated. “The White Walkers are real, too.”

The wildling with the mane sneered. “And who are you to-”

Varamyr thrust his hand into the air and snapped it into a fist, as if snatching the man’s words out of the ether and crushing them to powder; the wildling fell silent. “... And you didn’t think to mention this before now?” he growled.

“No. I didn’t.”

“You see now why we cannot leave without you with us.” said the third man, who had a long, narrow face with ears nearly perpendicular to his skull. “Every man, woman and child is going South with us, for good. The Wall will not stop us.”

Varamyr closed his eyes, and kneaded his shavepate forehead with his knuckles. “... Boy.” he said, finally. “Tell me what the South says of the Others.”

“The North - that is, the North of the Seven Kingdoms, the land of the Starks - tells of cold, and death, and the winter that lasted a generation.” replied Jon. “The true South thinks they are merely tales told to frighten children, but the North remembers. Fire for the Wights, Dragonglass or Valyrian Steel for the White Walkers. Dragon’s fire would serve against all but the Night King, but the last dragon died generations ago.”

Varamyr remained silent for a time, kneading his forehead. “... And where is Mance Rayder?” he asked. “I would have thought he would have greeted me himself.”

“The Mance is below the Wall.” said the first, with the spear. “A king of the South has gone to Winterfell of the Starks, and he has gone to see their feast. He is Bael the Bard come again, with the songs and trickery to match.”

Jon blanched. “He WHAT?”

_Mance Rayder, the King-Beyond-The-Wall, was a bard at King Robert’s welcoming feast and NOBODY NOTICED?_

“Har!” Varamyr laughed. “Weren’t expecting that, were you, Snow?”

Jon’s mind raced. It was certainly possible - he and Mance Rayder had never crossed paths before he was captured, and the traitor had never mentioned the story to him, but - Jon had not attended that feast. He had been outside, hacking away his frustrations at a training dummy. He had met nuncle Benjen, and the Imp, that night instead of being near the king - _and that was deliberate on Father’s part, wasn’t it, to ensure the king didn’t recognize some speck of his hated foe in me_ \- and if he was clever in traversing the mountain roads to reach the Gorge, he could have been back North before Jon had even _reached_ the Wall.

_How many blood would remain unshed… how many lives could be spared… if Ned Stark, Robert Baratheon and Mance Rayder were put in the same room to talk?_

The possibilities dizzied him.

“So Mance isn’t even here to command his own army, let alone convince me.” Varamyr replied, folding his arms. “And you just LET him walk off? And you stayed together? Bunch of fucking kneelers, all of you.”

“Bold talk for a man too weak to do his fighting himself.” snapped the one with the mane. “I didn’t see your famous pack, Fiveskins. You don’t seem a man worth -”

“Enough!” Barked the man with the mutilated ear, but Jon could already see that Varamyr’s face had twisted in fury.

“Boy.” He hissed. “Get the woman, and bring three jugs for the guests. A parting gift.”

The three wildlings went still. They knew what a host giving a gift to one who had eaten of his bread and salt meant - a deliberate delineation of his obligation. A revocation of Guest Right.

Jon knew, too, but when the thought of refusing crossed his mind, the two functional fingers on his bad hand twitched, and it passed. He returned, quickly, with Ynga at his side, carrying three of the ale jugs between them.

“Give these to the Mance, to let him know I appreciated his thoughts.” Varamyr said, through his teeth as the two younger two set the alcohol before them. “And tell him that I refuse, with every breath in my body, to join his army.”

The man with the spear inhaled, and steeled his face. “Then let me tell you, Varamyr Fiveskins, that Mance will not accept that answer. You will join his army, as all Free Folk will, because he refuses to feed the armies of the dead through his inaction.”

“Then let him come and try.” Varamyr snarled. “Get out of my hall.”

The three men stood, slowly, and took the jugs with them as they left. As soon as the door shut behind them, the small man screamed and punched the timber beam behind him. “COCKSUCKING MONGRELS! MOTHERLESS HOGSPAWN!” he roared.

“You know they speak truth about Mance.” Said Jon. “He fought and defeated the Magnar of the Thenns thrice in a day in order to force them into his army. This is an exodus.”

Varamyr growled like a vicious beast, his teeth bared like he would cut the boy’s throat out with the expression alone. “Then let me prove I won’t be convinced.” His eyes rolled into the back of his head, pure white, and he collapsed backwards onto the table, arms spread-eagle around him.

Jon’s eyes shot wide. “Others take me.” He cursed, before whirling on Ynga. “Get your things together, now. Anything you need, anything you care about. Gather it together.”

“What’s happening?” Ynga moaned, fearfully.

“Varamyr’s burning his bridges. GO!” Jon lunged towards his bed and grabbed his swordbelt, slamming his sheath into the loop made for it. Outside, the thundering roar and stampede of an ice bear was heard only seconds before the screaming started.

Jon had only just wrestled on his full cloak when the sounds outside ceased, and Varamyr returned to himself, gnashing his teeth. The Warg forced himself into a seated position, staring at Jon, who had gone still. “Running away, boy?” Varamyr asked quietly. The bog-dirt fire popped, and the outline of the Shadowcat cloak cast a shadow on the wall, a terrible half-man half-beast silhouette.

“... No.” Jon said, finally. “I still have to find the Raven.”

Varamyr grinned. “Damn right.”

Ynga slammed to a stop in the doorway, a sack full of food over her shoulder. Varamyr rotated slowly to her, eyes narrowed. “And where do you think _you’re_ going, woman?”

“Let her go, Threeskins.” Jon warned. “She’ll only be a burden.”

“I let her go when I SAY SHE CAN GO!” Varamyr roared. “THIS IS **MY** HALL! **I** AM THE LORD OF MOSS HILL! I AM THE **LORD**! NOT **YOU**!”

“Where I come from,” Said Jon, leashing his emotions tightly, “The Lords answer to the King. and you just butchered his messengers.”

“I’m not a fucking kneeler SHIT like you, Jon Stark!”

“We’re both Free Men, now, Threeskins, and on the run from the King-Beyond-The-Wall. And unless you think she’ll do you any good other than pleasuring yourself, she’ll only slow us down.”

“I’ll _gut_ you.”

“You’ll only die that much quicker.” Jon replied, through gritted teeth. “And I’ll get right back up from it.”

The wildling skinchanger glowered hatefully at the boy. “Go, then.” he snarled, without turning to face Ynga. “Get out of my sight.”

Neither moved.

“GO!”

Ynga gave a start, and burst for the door - Jon grabbed her by the forearm before she made it. “If the spear that man was carrying is still intact, take it.” he murmured in her ear. “I know this isn’t the way you wanted to become a spearwife, but it’s here now. Don’t waste it.”

“... Thank you.” with those final words, she ran past him, flinging open the door out of Moss Hill and into freedom.

“Spiteful little brat.” Varamyr snapped. “I gave you my bread and salt, and this is how you repay me?”

“The moment you killed those men, you could not keep her.” Jon replied, keeping his tone carefully placid. “She’s not your stolen wife, and she’s Free the same as you and I. Your bear can only carry two men on it’s back before tiring more quickly, as well.”

“You know nothing of my bear.”

“I know it’s like.”

Varamyr scowled. “You know of the North and it’s ways an awful lot, for a boy green enough to piss grass who’s never been past the Wall.”

Jon rolled his jaw for a moment. “... I never said I had never been beyond the Wall.”

“... Is that so?” Varamyr stared at him for a moment, before turning and diving deeper into the house. “Fine. Then you know that what I’m about to do will infuriate the Mance when he comes for me himself, if it doesn’t kill him first.”

“And what is that?”

Varamyr returned, holding three thick strands of rope.

Jon paled. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I would.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing. You should burn them.”

Varamyr grinned, sinisterly. “Oh, but I do. You said it yourself - the Others are real. Now, come with me. We’re going to leave a parting gift for the King-Beyond-The-Wall.”

Jon stared at the small man, draped in Shadowcat colors, emotions boiling in his chest. _I should have killed you. I should have killed you, when you were still in control of your bear, and spared the world of you. I would have died, but then I wouldn’t be party to this foulness._

His fingers danced along the hilt of his castle-forged longsword, uncertainly. Questioning whether it was worth it. After a lingering moment, he lowered it back down. “Not yet.” he whispered. “Not until we find the Raven.”

He closed his eyes, steeled himself, and stepped outside. He had three dead men to hang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s a funny feeling, knowing that somebody whose writing is the reason you started writing a story in the genre is a fan of your work. Shoutout to DannieU, I see that Kudos. Dragonstone was my fucking jam, you don’t even understand. (*muffled screaming in the distance*)
> 
> And yes, I click on the profiles of every single one of you that bookmarks or leaves kudos, to see if any of you are people I recognize, or otherwise have good taste in stories that I can steal from. I gotta say... some of you don't expect your profiles to ever be examined, and it really shows. Blegh.
> 
> 11 thousand hits! With five digits to our names, we are officially a big boy story now, and we’re basically still in the prologue. We have not even BEGUN to get wild and wacky with the scenarios. Life Six is gonna be a fucking adventure, where a hint of the bigger picture emerges, and it’ll still be only a primarily Westeros-based tale. Wait until we really start ranging abroad. Man, I kind of wish I had a robot to do all these early parts on my behalf so we can get to the spicy lore.
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed. It was certainly enjoyed by me, as a distraction to the pain of looking for a new job. Writing might slow down, as I look to make sure I don't starve when I lose my paycheck at the end of September. Wish me luck.


	10. Life Five: Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feet First Into Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who don't read my author's notes and are wondering where I've gone - I'm not dead, I'm just jobless. Please wait warmly for the next chapter or two while I make sure I don't have to type this all out inside a cardboard box down by the river.

“Spit it out.” Said Varamyr, after hours of riding north in silence. 

Jon said nothing in reply, biting the inside of his cheek to stifle himself. The snow bear underneath his legs lumbered forward in rolling motions, carrying the two of them easily.

“You think I can’t tell you’re itching to talk? Say what you need to say. We’re together now, until either we’re dead or we’re standing on the Raven’s corpse.” 

“... You shouldn’t have done that.” Jon said, finally. 

“The killing, or the hanging?”

“... Both. But the hanging was worse.” his fists clenched. “You should have burned the bodies. If they return as wights-”

“Returning was the whole point.” Varamyr said, cutting him off. “The branch wasn’t so thick they couldn’t break it, if they wiggled. Teach the Mance a lesson.”

“You’ve only fed the army of the dead.” Jon replied heatedly. “Mance is going to march on the Wall, and he is going to be repulsed. The corpses he leaves will create an army for the Night King a hundred-thousand strong, and every body you willingly add to that number will be another man slain once the Wall is breached. If Mance Rayder is killed before they even assault the Wall because of your ambush, the massacre will only be worse.”

“Mance Rayder is going to fail horribly, but without him, his army is going to fail horribly.” Varamyr drawled. “And you wanted me to join them?”

Long golden hair flashed behind his eyelids, and a low throaty chuckle echoed in his ears from long ago and far away. “... I didn’t say that.” Jon murmured. “Only that there are people worth saving in that army.”

“People worth saving everywhere, I’d guess.” Varamyr said, refocusing his gaze forward. “Doesn’t mean I give a wet shit about them.”

Jon grit his teeth, but kept silent.

“Eyes open, boy.” Said Varamyr, after the silence dragged on. “I am only the Threeskins now, and we don’t know where this Raven is hiding. We’re not nearly as prepared as we should have been.”

_And whose fault is that?_

“If you have any hint of where the Raven is hiding,” Varamyr continued, “better than your suggestion of half the Forest, now is the time to say.” 

Jon began to deny it, but stopped. “... Possibly.” Jon said, thoughtfully. “Wherever he is hiding, it is in a place accessible to a crippled boy, dragged by a sled by a man who is simple.”

“Simple?”

“A stablehand of Winterfell, named Hodor.” Jon replied. “The only thing he is able to say is his own name, but he’s a beast of a man, at least seven feet tall. Some think he has the blood of giants in him.”

“Giant’s blood… Now I see it.” Varamyr rubbed his chin. “No clever hiding place in the side of a cliff, then. Has to be accessible from the ground, to drag a sled to. And it’s in the Forest, as well… but not so far that it can’t be reached by those two, without good hunters.” 

“So there is no crossing of the Antler River.” Jon finished, eyes glinting clear and grey in the sun. “And they wouldn’t go so far west as to reach the Fist of the First Men. It must be north of the Milkwater, as well, else the Night’s Watch would have discovered it long ago on a ranging.”

“So north of the Milkwater, but not so north as to pass the Antler, and west, but not so west as the Fist, and somewhere accessible by sled.” Varamyr grinned. “And his hiding space will be marked by Weirwood.”

“... It would be, wouldn’t it?” said Jon, as his eyes narrowed. “Bound to the Weirwood, they say…” 

“Born of the Hungry Tree, they say.” The wildling echoed. “Narrows it down quite a bit. That’s still a lot of ground to cover, but we won’t have to search the entire damned North.” Varamyr snorted. “Searching for a single tree in a forest from the air. Good thing it’s a tree with leaves of blood, or we’d be here until we die of old age.”

“... We both know that won’t happen.”

Varamyr glanced over his shoulder with a single eye. “... Aye.” He said, flatly. “There won’t be any peaceful deaths, out here.” 

Jon kept his eyes rigidly forward, and resisted the urge to inch his hand forward to flutter over the pommel of his blade. He wondered if Varamyr was doing the same.

 

* * *

 

_The wind drafted up underneath her wings, raising her high into the sky as she soared with outstretched wings. Above the endless sea of green and white, the world was still - the cold did not penetrate her thick feathers, and her pinprick eyes sought splashes of color standing apart._

_Ahead of her, a hint of red underneath a blanket of snow became visible from the right angle. She let out a screech and tucked her wings inward, diving hard and fast towards the target. Only when it became obvious to part of her that it was not what they were seeking did she bank, braking her wings and pulling to a graceful stop upon the pale white branches. A flicker of movement from the brush caught her attention, and she dove forward -_

Jon shuddered, and came back to himself. “There was another heart tree, about two miles north.” He said, slowly pushing himself upright from the carefully-perched slumped position he had been in. 

“And?” 

“Wrong one, again. She’s off eating a hare, now.”

Varamyr growled throatily. “Fuck it. We end here today.” the snow bear came to a halt, and she bared her teeth in a silent snarl. The two men dismounted, and the older Wildling was walking with a bow-legged gait. They had been riding for three weeks, now; It was only Jon’s youthful resilience and experience in the saddle that kept him from the same appearance.

The moment the two were standing free, the 13-foot-tall predator immediately dashed off into the forest. _She hates being bound by Varamyr, and it is only by the grip of a skinchanger’s control that keeps her from abandoning us,_ Jon thought. _She couldn’t hide from him no matter where she ran._

Jon turned to glance at Varamyr. The short man was behind a tree, loudly relieving himself, but Jon still knew where he was, less by his five senses and more by a near-incessant faint tingling in his head, like a single ant walking in a tight circle on the inside of his skull towards his general direction. It had developed during the second week of travelling, and had not stopped. He hadn’t mentioned it to the Wildling, but he could guess why - Varamyr had said that he could tell Jon was a skinchanger by a burning sensation.

_This is mild compared to how Varamyr described his condition, at the beginning of all this. If his description is more regular, then it is small wonder most Wargs live away from men, and each other._

The two of them quickly staked a wide leather sheet to the midpoint of a pine tree and the ground respectively, creating an overhanging three-sided tent. Varamyr wiped the sweat from his brow after breaking the icy ground and glared hatefully at the makeshift shelter. “I hate this thing.” 

“It’s yours.”

“I still hate it. Hate it every time I have to use it. It’s cold, and drafty, and wet. It isn’t worth shit when winter properly sets in, too.” Varamyr reached into his pack and drew out a ration of thinly-sliced flame-roasted venison rolled around a group of berries, and took an angry bite. “And now it’s all I have, until that feathery cocksucker is dead, and we’ve crossed your Black Gate.”

 _He’s angry he had to abandon Moss Hill,_ Jon realized. _He longs for home, the way I longed for Winterfell before I was banished._ He hated how much it made him empathize with the wretch.

After a moment, he spoke. “Tell me about Moss Hill. I’ve never asked, but it was as fine a hall as could be found beyond the Wall.”

Varamyr turned to face him, as animal grease and berry juice dribbled down his chin. “... Aye. It was, wasn’t it?” he replied, finally. “And now, it’ll likely be destroyed the moment the Mance sees what I’ve done to his men.” the thought seemed to dampen him further. 

“It wasn’t my hands who built the place; not really. I was too young for that. It was old Haggon who built it, though I was the cause for it.” his lips curled. “Tall and grim, he was, and a voice like a mountain shedding snow. I was thrown to him when they discovered I was a warg; back then, I was too sickly to travel far, the way a ‘real’ Free man does. So Haggon built Moss Hill, on the edge of a bog so that the dirt could be harvested for the flame, and the iron brought out of the muck to become nails.”

“It sounded as though he cared.”

Varamyr snorted. “Hardly. A great cage of moss and mud is what he built. He knew I had torn out Bump’s throat; mayhaps he thought it was a duty to the Gods to restrain a kinslayer, for he knew I couldn’t leave that place without his aid.” he folded his arms, and his lips thinned. “He tried to bind me to his rules - ‘to mate as wolf with wolf, or to feast on manflesh as beast, is abomination’ - but I hated his rules almost as much as I hated him. I learned, though.” 

Jon wrinkled his nose. “Mating as wolf with wolf sounds right, though. That’s foul.”

“Har! I’ll give you that, Stark.” Varamyr chuckled. “Rather loud complaint from you, though - not looking to fuck your Tully cousins, little wolf?” Varamyr only laughed louder at the curdled expression on Jon’s face.

“That’s disgusting. I’ll not suddenly bed them just because the gods know they’re not my siblings anymore.” 

Varamyr smirked wordlessly, right up until Jon’s face twisted into anger. “Alright, Stark.” he responded, through there was a mocking tone to his voice. “I kept to those rules by Haggon as long as I was trapped by him, not because I wanted to, but because I had to.” Varamyr smiled slightly, in a menacing way. “I had the last victory in the end. He was an old man, even before he took me.”

Jon kept his expression neutral, and free of emotion - he had a feeling he knew where this story ended, now. “... Did you kill him?”

“I did. He was dying already of old age - couldn’t even rise from his bed. But I wouldn’t let him choose his time.” Said Varamyr. “I stuck a knife in his chest, early in the day, and as he spent his last breath racing to his favored beast, a greybacked wolf nearly as wizened as him, I took it for myself and denied him his second skin.” he grinned cruelly, revelling in the memory. “He died choking on his blood, on the day I became a man grown.” 

“After that, Moss Hill was no longer my cage - it was my hall, my seat of power. No man would ever again bind me - instead, I would bind others. None but my own whims will tell me that I am forbidden from eating manflesh as a beast, or from wearing another man’s skin as I would wear a beast.”

Jon Snow stilled. “... You can do that?” Jon said softly, a horrified look on his face.

“Hmm?”

“A regular skinchanger can… take the skins of other men?” Jon repeated. “Not only Greenseers, but other, regular skinchangers can as well?”

Varamyr Threeskins leaned back, and folded his arms. “... Aye. We can.” he said, warily. “Not nearly as easily as a beast, I was told, but it can be done. A beast doesn’t have a sense of self - it can’t tell what thoughts running through their minds belong to them or not.”

“Then, that protects men from being taken?” Jon repeated, eyes wide. “Knowing firmly who you are can fight it off?”

“For normal men, yes.” Varamyr nodded. “I’ve never done it, but that’s only because I’ve never wanted, nor needed to. I tried once, though, to take Haggon when he drove me to fury.” his lips curled downward. “Like skipping a rock across a frozen lake - bounced right off. He didn’t even notice. Those with the Gift, I imagine, are immune, else one of us would have been taken by the Raven and murdered the other by now.”

Jon Snow closed his eyes. “... Then how is it that the Raven can take the bodies of others for his own?” Jon asked. “If all skinchangers, wargs and Greenseers cannot be taken, then how does he intend to take Bran, who is a Greenseer?”

Varamyr opened his mouth, then closed it again, brows furrowed. “... Naughty children…” he said quietly, after a long moment. “Maybe…” 

“What?”

“The Hungry Tree.” he replied. “Only the naughty children, the brats who don’t listen to the stories, are taken by the Three-Eyed Raven. Don’t you get it?” He leaned forward. “It means knowing about the Raven prevents him taking you. Because if you know about the Raven, you know he is a wicked greenseer born of the Hungry Tree, and turn him away. He can only take the ones who LET him take them.”

“... Or there’s nobody left inside.” Jon’s eyes widened. “They’re already skinchanged into something else, and the Raven takes the place their soul vacated.”

Varamyr’s lips peeled back into a teeth-bearing sneer. “Ravens are scavengers the same as Crows - they’ll pick over the carcass after the others have left. Aye, that sounds like some kind of truth to things.” 

Jon turned his gaze outwards, to the place where the female wolf was trailing after them; she always followed many steps behind them, seemingly still fearful of the bear. “Then when the time comes to fight the Raven,  and whatever guard he has assembled… we must do it as ourselves. Or he will take us.”

“... Give me your bow, then.” Said Varamyr. “I’ll be needing it, after all.” 

As Jon handed the wildling the weapon, Varamyr suddenly smirked. “I’ve told you tales of my home. Now, tell me tales of yours.”

“Of Winterfell?”

“That’s right.” Varamyr leaned forward, eyes glinting in the dying light of dusk. “Tell me how a kneeler lordling lives. Tell me of your red-headed Tully siblings, and the things a lord does with family. Tell me of the food, and the land, and the people who scrape and beg at your feet. I want to know.”

“The smallfolk don’t scrape and beg.” Jon protested, drawing back.

“Smallfolk! Oh, I like that.” Varamyr laughed. “Big, tall, strong lords, and then the smallfolk. I like that very much.”

“You misunderstand.” Jon said, more forcefully. “It is not a slight. The lords are there to ensure the land is managed and exploited properly, and the smallfolk do the necessary work. In doing the work, the smallfolk extract a promise that the lords will protect them, and ensure they will be able to live through trade - a man who only forges swords or builds houses will not fear for starving, for the lords promise that he can trade his labors for coin, and coin for food and heat, and that he will not be assaulted without justice meted.”

“And how many keep with such _noble_ intentions?” Varamyr asked, a mocking smirk.

“Not all.” Jon admitted. “But most. There are usually ways to force correction on errant lords.”

“Like _what?_ You’ll scold them like children?”

“Or you can kill them.” Jon said flatly. Varamyr went still. “That’s what happened to Mad King Aerys, who burned my grandfather alive fifteen years ago.”

“HAR!” Varamyr crowed, throwing his head back and laughing. “You Southerners have more spine to you than I thought!” he grinned, like a wild animal. “Go on, then. Tell me more. Tell me why you have been able to keep us beyond the Wall for so long. I’ll be one of you, once I am through the Black Gate - so teach me.”

_No, you won’t. I won’t let a man like you loose on the Seven Kingdoms. You will die beyond the Wall, one way or the other._

But Jon Snow said none of that, and instead, he did as asked, and spoke of the South. And with every word, Jon grew all the more acutely aware of just how Varamyr’s eyes gleamed with envy… and greed.

 

* * *

 

It was another two weeks of wandering before [they were attacked](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDnENTDuAiI).

The two men were slowly cleaning up the debris of roasting a stag over a small campfire, having carved it into as many portioned pieces as they were able to carry and leaving the rest of the carcass to the nameless snow bear. It was a lucky hunt, for they had begun to run low on supplies, and had resorted once more to game to bolster their meals. 

Varamyr finished the last grease-laden portion of venison and wiped his bristly chin roughly with his arm. “That’s it, then.” he said, the first words he’d spoken since the fire started, and kicked a footful of snow onto the small cookfire. “Call the bird back. We need our eyes.”

Jon nodded, trying to keep a straight face. He had been spending more and more time as the eagle as they traveled, as Varamyr could not both direct the bear and fly at the same time; he could understand now why men got lost in the skies. It was always a moment of deep regret when he came back to his immobile meat. He might have lost true perspective by now, had it not been for the constant, faint sensation of Ghost in the back of his mind. The pup was growing fast and strong, and it was a ballast to his skyward soul.

Jon slowly closed his eyes, tracing himself towards that twitching sensation in the sky, and remembered the love of his life bleeding in his arms, an arrow in her back-

_She was soaring through the air once again, eyes peeled for that characteristic splash of red that part of her knew marked her foe. But she was in a strange place, so she wheeled instead, searching for a trail of smoke that would mark the last remnants of a campfire. It was there, after a moment, in the distance, she flapped her wings, raising herself higher -_

_Down below her, a flicker of movement caught her attention. On pure instinct, she refocused on the movement. It was fast, and nearly invisible against the forest, but it was there, and moving towards the campfire. She let out a scream of fury and dove, razor-sharp talons extended fully. In an instant, she was there, plunging her preferred mode of attack into the attacker’s eyes, who were wrought of green and brown-_

Jon came back screaming. “There’s a Child of the Forest!” He shouted. “Charging us with a spear! North-by-northwest!” 

Varamyr, to his credit, did not even question the pronouncement, and instead immediately slung the bow off his back and nocked an arrow. His slender arms trembled with the effort of the string, but the arrow still shot true, and an inhuman scream answered them. 

“Tear it to shreds!” Varamyr roared, and the snow bear bellowed it’s reply before charging forward to finish the job. The longsword was in Jon’s hand in an instant, circling around with wide eyes. 

“There’s more!” Jon shouted. “There’s always more! Don’t let them-”

Jon whirled around and slashed the longsword down, deflecting a twisted and pure white spear aimed for his heart. The Child of the Forest let out a high sibilant hiss, like the sound of wind over a snowy plain, and dashed away faster than Jon could even see. The shadows of the forest dappled over the bark-colored skin, shadowing its too-large cat-slit eyes. 

Jon had no idea how he had seen the attack coming - it was in his perfect blind spot, and the Child had an inhuman agility. He lifted his blade, matching it to the Dragonglass speartip, and charged. The Child hacked an ugly sound like cracking ice and dashed to the side, but he was prepared for that and caught the spearhaft with his blade. The weirwood weapon deflected it, but now the Child was off balance and slowed. 

It’s face twisted in fury, and twirled the weapon about, slapping away the longsword with not near enough reach. The butt end flicked out, slamming into Jon’s nose, and reared back in pain as his eyes automatically shut. The Child pulled the spear to its side and charged -

Even with his eyes closed, Jon swung the blade with powerful purpose, catching the haft with the crossguard and directing it down. Before it had the chance to be shocked, his boot slammed the spearpoint into the ground, trapping it, and with a wide whirl swung his blade perfectly through its neck, decapitating it. Only once he heard the thump of it landing on the frozen turf was he able to open his eyes again, stinging and watery. The Child’s death expression was one of shock.

“Is that all!?” he shouted, his vision cloudy. “Are there any more?”

“I don’t-”

The eagle screamed from on high, and Jon knew instantly. “ABOVE YOU!” By the time he had plucked the weirwood spear from the snow and spun it in a wide semi-circle behind him, blocking the two incoming spears, the fifth ambusher had dropped from the trees, weapon plunging towards the Wildling. Jon tucked the weapon close, to stabilize it in his bad hand’s grip before it could roll from his fingers, and with a loud scream hurled the weapon overhead; Varamyr dodged with all the grace of a lumbering cow, and the spear flew in a perfect arc to impale the Child through the chest, blasting it backwards until the point stuck into the turf. 

The Northman instantly spun and skipped backwards to face the two others who had attempted to backstab him, flicking his blade tip out of the snow to point directly at them. “COME ON!” he screamed at the two, who were staring at him with wide unblinking eyes instead of attacking. “AAAAAAAH! COME ON!” 

The one on the right said something, in a language that sounded like nothing more than a burbling stream, before flitting away in that too-fast-to-see manner. Jon knew, somehow, that it was going behind him, and so he strafed to his left, but the one still in front of him stabbed rapidly, forcing him to deflect the blows on his backfoot. 

The spears were not especially long, he noticed, being around only six feet, but that was still almost twice the range of his longsword. One of them dashed behind him and thrust at his exposed back, and only the inhuman knowledge of exactly where they were aiming saved him, as he twisted to the side and counter-swiped the other. The two were not making the same mistake as their first companion - without giving him the time to breathe or get himself in range, they could kill him through exhaustion, or a misplaced step.

He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

Onward he spun, sword singing in the air as he blocked and deflected and dodged from all angles, for no matter how quickly they raced around him to stab he was prepared. One of them snarled something in their impossible language. Jon swiped the blade within inches of its face in reply, then slid to the left.

His foot slid. He had hit an icy patch, underneath the snow. Suddenly, Jon’s balance was in danger, and the one behind him jumped. His side burst wide open in pain; it was not a fatal wound, but he was bleeding from the gouge all the same. 

And as the pain filtered through his senses, the sudden, inexplicable sense of knowledge, of a second pair of eyes, left him. 

Cold fingers of fear gripped him, then. He swung wide, in a swift circle, slapping the two weirwood weapons away from him to back away, but the second was behind him again, twirling the weapon, he spun to meet it, charging into it’s range with a desperate man’s strength; he only had a moment to wish he had a true bastard sword, to utilize both hands, before striking again. 

“BEHIND YOU!” 

Jon immediately rolled, and the weirwood spear pierced through where he had been standing a moment ago. He sprang to his feet, and the two Children of the Forest stared at him with sinister, toothy grins. He roared, feeling his wind leaving him. “COME ON!” 

One dashed away, and the other charged -

A keening shriek sounded behind him, and the first stumbled. Jon didn’t look behind him, but raced forward to grab the spear with his free hand, pulling it just enough to run the Child through the heart. The diminutive creature looked up at Jon, let out a small, keening wail, and died.

Behind him, a _thunk_ of impacted flesh sounded out, and Jon turned around in time to see the golden eagle take flight away from its grip on the Child’s gouged eyes, with a bone-tip arrow protruding through its forehead. He panted, his hand flashing down to lean on the back of the grey wolf. The wolf herself was standing over yet another dead Child.

“FUCK!” Varamyr shouted, punching the air with terrified, exhilarated energy. “EIGHT! EIGHT OF THEM!” he turned to Jon, eyes wide and shimmering with vicious pride. “They thought Children were a myth and we just killed EIGHT of them in one day. Oh, we are close - close enough to piss on his leg, I can **feel** it.”

“Varamyr, I-” Jon wiped at his numb face; his forearm came back bloody, bleeding from his broken nose. “I could see. I shouldn’t have been able to see that one twice, but I still knew where it was! How? Is this more warg magic?”

“Not the fucking time!” Varamyr whistled, and the nameless snow bear came charging back. Jutting out of its side were two white spears, and it was bleeding from a missing eye, but it only appeared to be more furious than ever. 

“Is it!?” 

“Yes!” Varamyr shouted, scrambling up the furry beast. As he reached the top, he grabbed one of the spears and ripped it from the bear’s side in a spray of blood; the beast howled in fury, bucking once, but Varamyr stayed mounted. “But I don’t know how to do it intentionally! Now GET ON THE FUCKING BEAR!” 

The admission that Varamyr didn’t know stunned him, but only for a heartbeat, as Jon sheathed his blade, snatched another weirwood spear from the ground and joined Varamyr on the bear. Jon immediately reached for the connection-

_She was soaring once again, her talons dripping with viscera. Part of her knew she didn’t have long, and so her powerful wings beat against the sky to rise high, higher than she had gone in a long time, and to search for her target._

_She found it - a pair of trees of white and red, nestled against the side of a hill. On top of the hill, a massive blood tree stood, groaning in the wind, and between the two lesser siblings, a yawning abyss opened, dark as night. In the branches of the greatest tree, a raven stared back at her with an unhallowed rage, and she ducked her wings to dive once more -_

Jon snapped back to himself with a gasp. “It’s there!” he panted. “Three miles to the west, a cave in a hill near three weirwoods!” Varamyr answered with nothing but a shout and digging his heels into the bear’s sides, who let out a furious roar and took off at a dead sprint.

Jon clutched onto the fur for dear life - the bear was moving almost as fast as a horse at full gallop, without a single saddle between the two. “Get the bow off my back!” Varamyr shouted, over the wind and the galloping thunder. “He’s not done with us yet, count on it!” 

Jon, with as much speed as he was capable of with only one free hand, slid the bow and leatherskin quiver from the wildling’s back and onto his own body. That done, he regripped the spear tightly, and swiveled his gaze about. 

_It won’t take even ten minutes to reach that cave, but for a man like the Three-Eyed Raven, that’s more than enough._

From the distance, a rowling scream echoed. “Shadowcat!” Varamyr called. “Eyes peeled, the little shits can sprint!” 

Not even a minute later, he saw it - a speeding streak of black and white darting through the shadows. The bear was fast, but Shadowcats could outstrip a horse in seconds. The feline raced to their side, yowling its battlecry; Jon answered with a shout and a two-handed stab at its face. 

The stab flew wide, and it batted away the point almost contemptuously without even breaking its stride. Jon kept stabbing anyways, going for its head. He went far over to the side, chasing the beast until the only thing keeping him on the bear’s back was his bloodless clamped legs.

The shadowcat lunged, snapping at his neck in his exposed position; Jon retorted with a spinning strike to its snout. The beast yowled, its eyes flashing white for a fleeting second, before darting back. He had the Raven’s full attention, now. 

A hand grabbed Jon by the neck and yanked him back upright as the beast lunged, before Varamyr’s own spear lashed out. Back and forth, the running battle went, with neither being able to land more than glancing blows. Then the Shadowcat began to lag - slowing for an instant, before pulling back up to speed. 

“Shadowcats are sprinters, ya featherbrained cunt!” Varamyr cackled when he noticed. “No fuckin’ endurance!”

The shadowcat didn’t appear to take kindly to that. Its paws slashed out at the snow bear’s legs, and the beast howled as it’s gallop stumbled. Varamyr yelled in surprise and toppled; the shadowcat yowled in victory and leaped. 

Jon roared and threw the spear. The angle was perfect, and caught the beast in the breast. Its feline roar turned to a screech as it fell numbly onto Varamyr’s body, thrashing once, twice, three times before falling still. 

Jon whooped, and grabbed the bear by the neck fur and dragged it to the side. With far more agility than would have been expected, the beast wheeled back around, and with a single smooth motion, Jon leaned over the side and grabbed Varamyr and spun him back into his seat single-handedly.

“Hells, you’re strong, kid!”

“What have we learned!?” Jon shouted.

“That I’ll wring his scrawny NECK for that!” Varamyr replied, reseating himself properly on the racing bear’s shoulders. “Fuck, I dropped the spear!”

“We’re not turning around for it!”

“No need!” He grinned viciously, and reached down to the jostling weapon, still planted in the bear’s side, and ripped it out. She screamed in pain, and nearly stumbled, but Varamyr’s eyes flashed white for a moment, and she righted herself once more. “We have a spare!” 

“She’ll kill you if you keep abusing her like this!” 

“I’ll plunge my own dagger into her skull the moment she tries!” Varamyr shouted. “I can tell every thought in her head the moment she has them!”

A loud bugling call echoed, as if answering his thoughts. “Ah, fuck.” Varamyr cursed, shifting his spear higher, and for the first time his eyes held a hint of fear. “That’s a bull moose. There’s a herd nearby.”

Jon paled. A fully-grown bull moose was easily twice as big as even the largest of snow bears, and unlike their giant elk counterparts were ornery enough to even give direwolf packs pause against all but the young and sickly; Shadowcats didn’t even dare try. “He’ll know.” He shouted over the wind. “They’ll be coming for us, and they’re faster.”

“THEN KILL THEM YOU DUMB BASTARD!”

The trees thinned, and Jon could see just for a moment a bigger herd of moose than he’d ever seen swerving through the trees towards them. “Son of a- there’s a dozen of them!” Jon lifted the spear in his hand and cocked it back. The first bull, who had to be closer to three-thousand pounds than it was to two, bellowed and charged just as Jon threw the weapon with all his might. 

The spear flew true, and took the moose in the hindlegs. It let out a scream and toppled, into the path of two others, who tripped and fell across its body. The rest swerved out of the way and continued their wild stampede. “Gods, if we weren’t running!” Varamyr shouted. “I could eat for half a year on just one of these things!”

Jon didn’t disagree in the slightest - finding the giant moose carcasses in the wild was one of the few things that kept his entire clan from starving in the winter. _But now’s not the time for that,_ he thought as he slung the bow off his back, spun around to face the pursuing beasts and loosed an arrow at the nearest possessed animal in a smooth motion. 

The projectile landed true, but unlike the spear the moose didn’t even flinch as it landed in it’s chest, and just charged harder. Jon paled. “Die!” He shouted, loosing another, but this time the entire herd dodged in unison. Another bull pulled forward alongside them, and it swung its head at them to attack with antlers that were wider across than Jon was tall. The two ducked, but Varamyr caught a glancing blow - he came back up with his cheek torn open, and his eyes were alight with fury.

“DIE!” he slammed the tip of his spear into the eye of the moose, ripping it back out just as the beast bellowed in pain and toppled to the side. “KEEP FIRING!”

“THE ARROWS DO NOTHING! THEY’RE TOO SMALL!” 

“HERE!” Varamyr threw the spear behind him, and Jon, in a feat of dexterity, juggled the two weapons until the smaller wildling had the bow once again. A pair of broad-shouldered cows bellowed and charged opposite sides, but Jon twirled the polearm about to slash as the both of them, forcing them to drop away. Even still, the entire herd of megafauna was nearly on top of them. 

“WE CAN’T HOLD THEM!”

“HOLD THEM LONG ENOUGH! I CAN SEE THE CAVE!” 

The entire herd pounded against the ground even harder in reply - the air thundered with the sound of their hooves. Jon stabbed again, again and again with the weapon to try and keep them at bay, but at last, the Bull of the herd - a monster of a moose - broke out of the pack, lowered its antlers, and charged.

“IT’S GONNA BREAK OUR LEGS!”

“HOOOOOOOOOLD!” 

With a final, panicked scream, Jon drew the spear back and threw it with all his might at the bull’s head. it hit perfectly in the skull, and the beast stumbled but, Jon noted with horror, it did not fall. It bellowed, louder than any before, and charged. The beast crossed to within inches -

And slammed its massive antlers into a stone archway hard enough to crack the ground, as the sun disappeared. Jon only had a moment to yell out in surprise before the cave entrance shuddered behind them, as more and more of the many-ton beasts slammed into the body of their companion, until at last the bedrock gave way. Great boulders the size of a man fell from the roof, collapsing inward and burying the bull behind them as it screamed. 

Varamyr screamed wordlessly, a primal, feral sound of victory as the snow bear slowed to a halt and shuddered, swaying hard enough to topple the two riders off it’s side. Jon didn’t even care as he landed hard on the rock floor - he was too busy laughing, tears streaming down his face. 

“Fucking - AAAAAAAAAAAH! YES!” Varamyr roared. “Other’s frozen FUCKING ballsack, YES! OH!” he turned, panting. “Gods, I don’t think I’ve ever been this hard in my fucking _life._ Mange-ridden pox-infested slack-jawed - AAAAAAAH! FUCK YOU AND YOUR MOOSE, YOU SON OF A WHORE!” 

With a final, slow exhale, Jon pushed himself to a seat. “We’re here, then.” He said, steadying his breathing. 

“We are.” Varamyr said, grinning. “The Raven can’t stop us now.” Then the grin slipped. “He might ruin the victory, though. The entrance has collapsed.”

Jon turned around, staring at the pile of rubble with a hard look. “I don’t think so.” he got to his feet and slowly, carefully climbed up the pile of boulders.

“What are you doing?”

Jon said nothing until he reached the top, before gripping a boulder by a sharp edge and pushing hard. The rock shifted slightly, revealing a stream of light through a hole roughly a foot around. 

“Hells.”

“The top layer wasn’t as trapped as the others. We can make our way out through there when we’re done.” Jon climbed back down, dusting his hand against his pants before drawing his longsword. “Now… let’s move.”

Jon took the lead, with Varamyr behind him and the panting, lumbering bear following behind. The cave was oppressively dark, without the light from the entrance, but the walls were thick with tangled Weirwood roots, and they glowed faintly with an eerie light. It was just enough to enable walking without stumbling, but even still, they made their way carefully, for the passages were tight. 

“... Fuck.” Varamyr said after a few minutes, with a strange whistle to his words. “Ah, fuck, that hurts. Oh, hells, that hurts. He slashed my damned cheek open.”

“You need bandages?”

“I’m just complaining about how it feels like there’s a fucking coal in the left side of my face. That’s all. Of course I need bandages, you dumb fuck.” he replied. “But if we take a minute to stop and there will be an ambush. Count on it.”

Jon nodded, and continued on. Through the cave’s tunnels, the walls and floors were thick with bones - the walls were inset with the skulls of fantastical beasts, some that Jon could tell belonged to the Children, some to Giants, some to things more uncertain than that. In some places, where the tunnels widened into cavernous chambers taller than the higher peaks of Winterfell, the skeletons of enormous bats larger than a grown horse hung from the ceiling. 

It was in one of these caverns that Jon finally insisted on bandaging Varamyr’s face. “If you fall through loss of blood, the bear will turn on me, and then we both die to whatever the Raven has left for us.” he said. 

“... Fine.” Varamyr slowly sank to his knees, as Jon pulled out a wrap of bandages. The older man looked as though he was perpetually smiling on the left side of his face, for the cut was long and jagged and exposed his teeth. “There’s my potion from the woods witch in my pack, the one to keep your blood from fouling.”

Jon nodded, and quickly gathered the flask and dunked the bandages in the foul-smelling concoction. “I don’t have a needle and thread to sew the hole closed, or milk of the poppy to numb the pain.” Jon said, as he wrapped it slowly but tightly in a circle around his face. “But if we bandage it, and keep you from infection, you should be fine.”

“Apart from half my cheek being missing.”

“Apart from the scar.” He admitted.

“Hmph.” Jon tied a knot, and Varamyr stood; the bandages had wrapped across his right eye to ensure it would not slip, and so he looked as though he had been more hurt than he was. “If I left here without a reminder of the Raven, no man would believe me when I say I slew the Last Greenseer. Now they will know I am dangerous - no man ever feared Qhorin Halfhand less for his scars.”

“They might call you the Smiler.” Jon suggested, an attempt at levity. “Childslayer, Beastlord, Godkiller, Bane of Ravens. You’ll have titles to match Tormund Giantsbane.”

Varamyr let out a surprised bark of laughter. “How the fuck does a southron whelp like you know about that ginger cunt? Fucking braggart. He had the audacity to say that Ruddy Hall was a better hall than Moss Hill.”

“You’re just mad that he fucked the bear you’re riding.”

Varamyr doubled over, whooping harder than Jon had ever seen him, and he couldn’t help but laugh alongside him. The merriment echoed through the caves and into the roof, until without warning one of the giant bat skeletons detached from its perched and plummeted. It crashed with a mighty echoing shatter, and the two men were showered with cutting bone fragments. 

“Fuck!” Varamyr cursed. He lifted his arm and slapped a hand against a shallow cut. The crash echoed through the halls further and further away. “You alright?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, he knows we survived, I suppose.” 

The minute the words left Varamyr’s mouth, a rattling cacophony of bird calls thundered through the stone walls, and from the passage a massive murder of ravens swarmed. 

“RUN!” Jon shouted.

“Where!? The passage back is blocked!” 

“JUST RUN!” 

The two dashed to the back of the enormous cavern, the murder chasing them with every step. Varamyr snapped up one of the fallen skeleton’s larger bones and whirled, swinging a bat’s collarbone as long as his entire arm at the swarm. Three of the ravens were swatted out of the air, but the rest were too far away, and they were on him before he could retreat.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

“VARAMYR!” Jon shouted. He whirled on his feet, and was momentarily horrified by the sight - there was not an inch of the wildling visible, only a writhing mass of black feathers. Jon snarled, lowered his shoulder, and charged at the center of the mass.

His tackle slammed into the mass, and the cackling of the ravens only grew louder as he knocked Varamyr free, and immediately trapped him underneath his good arm. He whipped him onto his shoulder, as the man screamed in pain and wriggled unhelpfully, and Jon ran with all the speed in his legs towards the passage forward.

“MY EYE!” Varamyr screamed. “I CAN’T SEE!”

“Get your bear to follow us!” Jon shouted. “She’ll be too big for them to get past!” 

“MY EYEEEEE!”

Jon burst towards the tunnel, but even then he could already feel the ravens pecking and ripping at his back. A claw tore at the skin of his neck, so he ducked his head and poured on even more speed. Behind him he could hear the roar of the snow bear, and it charged, slapping aside the corvids with contemptuous ease. 

Jon dashed into the tunnel, to find it full of tangled pale roots bulging from the walls. He only had a moment to maneuver his way around them before the bear slammed into them behind him, blocked. It roared, deafening in how close it was to Jon’s ear, and backed up for another charge. The Northerner paled and ran even faster, before it flattened him.

The sounds of murderous crows disappeared, to be replaced with the sound of roots exploding, and rumbling rocks overhead. Jon flopped to the side of the near-black tunnel and set Varamyr down. “Can you walk?”

“My eyyyyeeeee…” he moaned. His face was hidden from his sight on account of the dark, but Jon could vaguely make out a stream of shining viscera streaming down from his left eye socket. “I can’t see…”

“You wouldn’t be able to see anyway.” Said Jon. “It’s too dark for that. The birds didn’t get under your bandages, did they?” Varamyr shook his head, moaning wordlessly. “Then you’ll be fine.” Jon replied, soothingly. “When this is all over, you’ll still have the eye that was covered.”

“Auuuuugh… Gods in the ever-winter heeeeeeells…”

“Come on, stand up.” Jon gently pulled Varamyr to his feet, setting his arm on the back of his furred cloak. “Hold on to this. As long as you hold on to this, you’ll be fine. I’ll see for the both of us.”

“Kill him… I’ll kill him… Bane of Ravens...”

“Stay with me, Threeskins.” Jon said, louder. “I still need you to leash that bear. Can you do that?”

“Mine… She’s mine… I am the one… none but my whims…”

Jon took a hesitant step forward, feeling for the tug of the man’s hand on his cloak. When he felt his cloak lift, he drew his sword and started forward once more. The snow bear behind them continued to roar in anger, tearing through the roots blocking her way; Jon had no doubt that there were ravens clawing and pecking at her backside, but to a beast like her it could only be a mild annoyance.

Jon took another step - and stopped. A faint sound, like that of shifting rocks, caught the least edge of his senses, barely audible over the sound of Varamyr and the bear. The glowing of the Weirwood roots only lit the way before him some number of feet before fading back into darkness. He narrowed his eyes. Slowly, ever so slowly, he reached into his pockets and withdrew his flintstone, before rapidly striking it against the edge of his sword.

The faintest reflection of a pair of eyes revealed themselves against the thrown sparks. The Child screamed a battlecry at it’s ambush being discovered and charged. The castle-forged longsword swung out into the dark, deflecting the Dragonglass tip of the spear away, but the polearm was far more maneuverable in the passage, and jabbed forward again. “BACK!” Jon shouted, deflecting again. 

The dark speartip stabbed at his face, and Jon felt a burning line of pain across his temple. The Northerner howled in pain, and slammed to the side of the cave, trapping the shaft of the spear in-between the crook of his neck and his collarbone. The inhuman Child chittered something and tried to yank it back, but the spear held for a second too long, and Jon’s blade broke its head in twain before it could try again.

A loud scream, from multiple throats, echoed from in front of them. Jon grit his teeth. “Alright. If that is how it will be.” he sheathed his blade, and picked the spear from the crook of his neck. “I’ll cut down every last one of you.” 

From the dark, a line of bodies swarmed. “FOR BRAN!” Jon howled, and lunged. His stab pierced through the leader’s face, before their attack could even reach him. He charged through the corpse and on to the next, with much the same results - his longer, human arms gave him a reach the Children could not hope to match, and in a cramped tunnel barely wide enough to fit two men shoulder-to-shoulder, there were no clever maneuvers that could avoid the deadly Obsidian spearpoint. 

Body after body fell to his fury. Blood spattered up to his elbow as he just. Kept. Stabbing. One of them wailed in something resembling despair before its death. Another picked up what appeared to be a small molded ball to lob at him, but then their throat was cut, and the tool fell unused. Behind him, Varamyr wailed something feverishly, but Jon stared forward, ever alert for more.

By the time the line of attackers ended, he had counted nearly two-dozen bodies thrown against him. All together, they had killed over thirty Children of the Forest today. Jon grinned ferociously, like a wolf baring its fangs. “Come, Varamyr.” he said. “We won’t have far now.”

“Kill him… Varamyr Godkiller… Me…”

The two men stepped through the tunnels with a frantic pace, across the bones of long-dead creatures, through a steeply descending path. No troubles were visited on them - perhaps the Raven had run out of defenders. At last, though, they came to a place where a great river could be heard flowing underneath them, and a bridge across a yawning darkness. 

At the edge of the bridge, seated in a tangle of weirwood roots shaped like a throne, was a body, more skeleton than flesh. He had pale white hair reaching to the ground, and roots grew through his body, including through an empty eye socket. The other eye, blood-red, swiveled slowly to meet Jon’s gaze, and on his neck a red blotch in a shape that spoke to Jon in a way he could not describe. 

“... [At last, I see you clearly.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdWkZOo-p0M)” Said the Three-Eyed Raven, with a voice that rasped with disuse. 

Jon gripped the shaft of his spear even tighter. 

“Let us talk, then… as equals.” The Raven continued. His lips quirked upwards. “Without our lessers listening.”

His eyes flashed pure white. “VARAMYR!” Jon shouted.

“NO! MINE!” Varamyr roared as the snow bear reared up behind him, and fell backwards into a skinchanging trance as he went to wrest control of his bear back. The bear twitched and jostled, and a strand of blood began flowing out of its snout. 

Jon spun about, hefted his spear higher, and let out a furious shout as he hurled the spear. The weapon flew perfectly, punching through the chest of the Three-Eyed Raven. A single breath escaped the corpse as it seemed to sag against the roots, and then the Greenseer was no more.

The bear went slack, swaying on its feet, and Varamyr slowly, ever so slowly, stood back up from where he had fallen. “... Is it done?” He asked. “Have you killed him?”

Jon let out a slow, shuddering breath. Suddenly, his body ached, from all that he had done to get to this point. “He’s dead. He’s finally dead.”

“Good.”

Varamyr reached down to his leg, pulled out his large bone-bladed hunting knife, and shoved it to the hilt into his snow bear’s eye. 

“What!?” Jon shouted. “What are you doing!? That was-” he stopped, as the man reached up to his facial bandages and ripped them off in a single smooth motion. 

The left half of his face was a ruin, a glaswegian grin torn up to his ear and his eye socket dripping blood and pus. But he smiled in horrible triumph, and his right eye was slowly going bloodshot, pure red.

The same eye, and the same pure red, as the corpse of the Three-Eyed Raven.

Jon’s vision went black. “YOOOU!” he drew his sword and swung at his neck, but the Wildling darted underneath the blow with a greater agility than Varamyr had ever displayed, dashing back until he stood next to the human corpse. 

“I had wondered whether he would take the bait, and leave his skin unattended.” Said the Three-Eyed Raven, through Varamyr’s lips. “Not knowing for certain is an unfamiliar feeling. I have you to thank for that blasphemy.”

He reached down and rolled his old corpse aside, and pulled a wrapped bundle from behind his back. From the bundle, he pulled a blade of darkened Valyrian Steel, with a dark red jewel in the hilt and golden flames licking from the pommel. He flicked the blade out, and took an expert stance.

Jon stared at the sword with wide, horrified eyes, and then at the corpse, where a dark red blotch covered the inside of its neck, in the vague suggestion of a raven. “You…” Jon breathed. “You’re Brynden Rivers. You’re Lord Commander Bloodraven.” 

The Three-Eyed Raven smirked.

Jon’s eyes narrowed. “... No.” He said. “No, you’re not Bloodraven. You’re the one who was wearing his skin. He went ranging by himself, and never returned - that was you.”

“Clever.” 

“I know the histories of the men who were Lord Commander before me.” Jon said, feeling his heart twist. “You took a man who was my uncle, many-times-great, and turned him into a puppeted carcass.”

“He was decrepit even when I took him.” said Varamyr Three-eyes. “I bound myself to the roots, and I survived, though I enjoy walking once again.” he grinned, and his glaswegian half nearly touched his eye. “I’ll enjoy it more when you die, and return my Sight to me, R’hllor.” 

Jon screamed, and swung for the Raven’s head. Dark Sister met him, the clash ringing in the cavern over the roar of the river. “No, you’re not R’hllor, are you?” Said Varamyr Three-Eyes. “You cast a burning shadow like his, but you’re not him. But you’re certainly not Jaeherys Targaryen, either.”

“I AM JON SNOW!” Jon shouted, slashing thrice at Varamyr’s head from his blind side. The Raven blocked them all easily, and his blade darted within an inch of Jon’s cheek.

“Are you?” The Raven grinned. “Do you really think that what came back from a blade in the heart could truly be called ‘Jon Snow’?” Jon flinched, just for an instant, and Dark Sister flashed out - 

The Raven’s wrist twitched upwards, and a slash that would have taken out Jon’s throat instead traced a wide gash across his forehead. Jon stumbled back, gritting back a scream of pain as blood began to flow freely, and the Raven scowled for just a moment. “Did you truly think magic of that worth came without a price, in this stunted age?” The Raven continued, as if nothing had happened. “None who are brought back are ever whole. But your hollow soul has been filled with scouring light, and incandescent flame. Tell me your game, R’hllor.”

“MY GAME IS TO KILL YOU!” Jon roared, slamming his castle-forged blade against Valyrian Steel over and over. 

Varamyr Three-Eyes laughed, mockingly. “You don’t know! You don’t even know why!” the Raven dashed back, more agile than Varamyr had ever been, with his back to the stone bridge over the river. “You think your quest’s end is kinslaying, and you don’t even flinch from it - proof enough you are not Jaehaerys Targaryen in truth, anymore. No, you are something lesser.” 

A wordless, animal sound escaped Jon’s lips. The Raven’s ruined smile only stretched wider.

“And now your folly has led you to me, in the dark places of the earth where my roots grow strongest. I won’t give you another chance to regret your mistake.” 

He rolled his sword-wrist, and the slender blade spun in the air. “Say one thing for you, boy,” the Raven said, scowling, “say that you’re strong. But you are outmatched.”

“You’ve stolen the body of a man so sickly he held his milkname until his fourth year.” Jon snarled. “I have strength enough, for you.”

The Raven’s ruined face twisted in anger, and Jon lunged. The two clashed, Jon hacking and slamming his blade against the Raven’s with force enough to numb his arm. Varamyr Three-Eyes clearly felt the blows more, given the way he backed away, leading them back across the stone bridge. The rock was slick with condensation, and covered in places with moss; the Raven seemed to know well the places to step lightly, and where to stand firm, where Jon did not. As he sliced ou, intent on cutting out his heart, Jon’s footing slipped - his hands instinctively went up and out to balance himself.

Dark Sister flashed out, and Jon felt searing pain. He screamed, as his ruined hand flew off the edge of the bridge, and down into the underground river. The Raven laughed once, in triumph, and swung -

And missed. Dark Sister passed below his sword-elbow, and not close enough to his belly to disembowel him. 

The Raven jerked in place, face twisted in fury; his head began to twitch violently. “You…! You still resist me, wretched ape!?”

“Mine…!” Varamyr Three-Eyes’ head twitched hard to the right, exposing his ruined eye and face. “No… Will… But MINE…!”

“Varamyr…!” Jon gasped, clutching his bleeding stump to his side; his hand had been cleanly severed at the wrist. With a ragged roar he charged. At the last minute, the Raven’s head reversed, granting him sight through his single eye once again, and blocked the stab. 

“You think he can save you now!?” The Raven shouted, hiding his ruined face from Jon as he rapidly deflected the blows. “Shall I tell him of your plans for his family, wildling!? How you dream of Ned Stark’s head on a pike, and Catelyn Stark swelling with your child!? Of making his sisters Sansa and Arya your bedslaves!?”

Jon’s vision went black. 

“YOOOOOOU!!” he howled, slamming his blade down. The two clashed, each blow so mighty tiny fragments of Jon’s sword chipped away against the Valyrian Steel. 

“You’ll never walk out of here, wildling!” The Raven shouted. “Never! I control you!” The Raven slapped Jon’s blade wide, twisting him out of position and leaving his back and side exposed. He lunged the tip of Dark Sister for his belly-

The blade sliced down and wide, slashing the boy’s left ankle. Jon screamed in pain, and dropped to a knee. The Raven was stumbling backwards.

“No one…” He hissed, exposing his blind, ruined side and hiding his eye. “Controls me… BUT ME!” 

His grip loosened, and Dark Sister fell from his grip. “NO!” The Raven screamed, chasing it down, but the blade clattered against the stone, and dropped over the side of the bridge into the yawning blackness of the underground river. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE! WHAT HAVE YOU-”

A broken, battered blade punched into his chest. Jon dropped to a knee as his severed tendons gave out, wrenching the blade upwards into Varamyr’s chest. A gout of blood spurted from between his lips, and Varamyr fell to his knees. 

Jon panted, chest heaving with the struggle to breathe. Varamyr’s left hand reached shakingly up to Jon’s face, stroking it. “... Thank… You…” 

 _That was the strength of the one they called Beastlord. That was the willpower that could defy a Greenseer, and turn away the Night King._ “It’s over…” Jon gasped, quietly. “It’s over…” The eyelids over Varamyr’s ruined eye closed, and his body went slack -

His right arm swung up, hand burning with a green-blue intensity, and grabbed Jon’s throat with a furious strength. The blood-red eye of the Raven were staring at him with hatred. **“NO… IT HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN.”**

Jon’s flesh sizzled, and he didn’t even have the air to scream as dark magic burned its way underneath his skin. For uncountable seconds they held there, as Jon’s vision ran to white…

The hand around his throat went slack, and the Three-Eyed Raven toppled over the edge of the bridge, and plunged feet-first into the black hell of the underground.

Jon slumped to the ground, panting for breath, as he clutched at his neckflesh. He could feel ruts in the shape of the Raven’s fingers, and when he drew his own hand back, the inside of his palm reflected a faint, glowing blue. _Magic. Whatever he has done, it has marked me. For what, I know not._

A long howl echoed through the caverns, and Jon wearily turned to face the path to the cave-in. From the tunnel, a figure approached on four legs, and only once it reached the foot of the bridge could Jon see it’s markings. It was the grey wolf, the female that he had bound, and in it’s mouth it carried a bleeding haunch of meat, covered with a thick layer of moose fur.

Jon did not have the strength to stand, and so he simply smiled, weakly. He knew leaving a hole in the cave-in would turn out well. “Good girl.”

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

By his count, he was not more than ten minutes of normal walking from the cave-in, and the hole he had left as a path out. He wasn’t capable of that speed, however - not anymore. Jon reached for a collected bundle of edible mushrooms and slowly chewed them as he considered his options. He knew there was little-to-no hope of making it back to the Seven Kingdoms in his condition. He wasn’t willing to give up, though; that had never been his way. 

A low moan escaped him, as his stump throbbed and his severed ankle pulsed. He wanted to be away from this pain, even for a moment. He needed… he needed to be free of the cave. He pushed himself up against the rock wall, situated himself as comfortably as possible, and closed his eyes -

_She was flying once again, free as the wind. A part of her exulted in that. Most of her simply wished to find breakfast. She soared higher and higher, until a twitch of movement underneath her caught her attention. She folded her wings and dove, and the hare squealed in terror as she slammed into it, stunning it for long enough for her talons to tear the life from its body._

_Her powerful hooked beak quickly tore into the body of the hare, gorging herself well on its meat. Once she had had her fill, and the sun had risen higher in the sky, she spread her broad wings and took to the air once again. Her belly was full, and the winds were accommodating, allowing her to rise high on the thermal updrafts. Part of her was content with this. Part of her wondered whether this was not better than what had taken place. It was -_

_It was like a thunderbolt hit - his wings gave out, and Jon plummeted for a moment before remembering how to fly once again. And that was the first sign that something was wrong - he knew himself. The Eagle was still there, but he knew he was a he - there was no symbiosis, anymore. Jon reached outwards -_

_He couldn't. He didn’t know how to find his own body again._

_Fear gripped him. He rose higher, and higher, praying his powerful eyes could see the Weirwood that marked the cave. Higher and higher he wheeled until at last he could see - see that the tallest, mightiest of the Heart Trees had been split in half, an enormous spear of ice jutting from the ground underneath it._

_He could see the army of the dead shuffling outside the cave entrance, blasted apart by ice and snow. He could see them writhing and slashing at a small darting figure, a speck of grey too fast to catch before it broke free of the horde and disappeared into the forest. And he could see a figure, skin blue as a cloudless day and crowned with a circle of horns, step forth from the cave._

_Behind him, a figure shuffled. Jon let out a loud, screeching wail as he saw his body walk again, a spear of ice jutting from his chest. The handmark on his neck, he could now see, glowed the same pale blue as the skin of the Night King his corpse now served._

_The Raven had marked him. Tagged him, lit a beacon for the Others, and the Others had answered. Neither of them had made it out of that cave alive._

_He let out a scream, full of anger and despair, and raced after the wolf. He would make sure she lived, where he did not._

 

* * *

_[They had made it to the Wolfswood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56cnOkQFRwo), and still Jon had not awoken in Winterfell. _

_There were moments where time melted together - he ruffled his feathers to pick at an irritant, look up, and realize that somehow the sun had set and the grey wolf had carried them for miles. Where he forgot, just for mere instants, who HE was and why HE was trapped in the body of an eagle. He did not know how long he had been like this; that memory had already fled him._

_The grey wolf kept him together. The sight of her reminded him of what he was there for, of the sigil that was his - only humans had sigils, and no matter what, he was human. He had to be._

_The grey wolf padded slowly through the underbrush of the Wolfswood, low and careful, stalking a deer. It was not often that wolves hunted alone - they were social creatures, and hunted in packs. If ranging alone, they feasted on carrion. Only when desperate did they try to hunt live game._

_She burst from the brush, and the doe startled. The wolf gave chase, barreling between the trees, nipping at the beast’s heels. Jon tucked his wings and dove at the doe’s eyes, but it dashed to the side, avoiding the blinding attack. The doe began to pull away-_

_Suddenly, a figure burst from the opposite side, tackling the doe to the ground, tearing at it’s throat. The grey wolf came to a halt. The interloper lifted it’s muzzle from the kill and bared its teeth in a silent snarl._

_Jon stared. A fond memory, once forgotten, came back. How long had he been like this, for him to have grown so large? He took to wing once again, and flew down to land on the rump of the doe. The great beast lifted away from the kill to attack, but Jon met it’s gaze, and it stopped._

_The two stared at each other for a long time. No sound passed in the Wolfswood but the wind in the leaves. Then the white wolf stepped forward, gently, hesitantly, and brushed its black nose against Jon’s beak. Jon leaned in to it, revelling in the touch, before taking to wing and landing on the white wolf’s back. The white wolf, so young yet already larger than the female, stepped away from the kill. The grey wolf dipped her head, and began to feast._

 

* * *

 

_Jon remembered himself the moment that he heard the horn._

_He had been losing himself for longer and longer, but the sound rolled over the hills like Judgment, and Jon remembered that he was not an eagle, but a man. The White Wolf looked up from his pup, ears pricked to the north - the Grey Wolf, heavy with a second litter, emerged from her den panting._

_Jon and the White Wolf took off together, racing across the ground and through the air. Jon soared higher, over the trees, and stared at the source of the sound._

_The great, impenetrable Wall was falling, crumbling to pieces with the sound of the Horn. each time the sound rolled across the world, fragments only barely large enough to see that must be larger than some mountains in truth, crumbled and fell._

_Jon let out a trilling scream of fury, and raced closer. Underneath, all manner of creature ran away from the sound of the seven Hells, but the Eagle and the White Wolf ran towards it. Snowflakes blotted the sky, but Jon didn’t care - he had to know._

_After the hours it took to come close, the army of the dead was swarming south, through the Gift and the New Gift, like a scythe through wheat. And at the center of it all, a figure that Jon remembered stood, tall and triumphant. At his side, a figure of ruin stood - it’s lips were burned with cold, and it’s throat was shattered like ice. In its hands it held a nondescript horn, banded with bronze, and shattered from the lip to the midpoint. Even now, through the icy ruin, the handprint of the Greenseer pulsed._

_Jon screamed in rage at the destruction of the wall, and sorrow at the desecration of what had once been him. He wheeled in the air, and soared away. The White Wolf followed underneath._

 

* * *

 

_Jon came back to himself with the howling of a wolf. How long had he been withering inside the eagle’s feathers? Too long. He was fading, and She was returning, longer and longer._

_The dead marched. They swept across the land, like a plague. Castles and keeps fell, buried by wights and buried by snow. They rose back up, sigils of flayed men fluttering in the breeze and on rotting chests. The crowned one did not march on Winterfell, though - he went around. Jon followed; the White Wolf followed with him. The Grey Wolf stayed in the den; the Wolfswood had not yet fallen, and the pups required nursing._

_The crowned one marched south, and then west, further west than the seat of Winter Kings. It marched to the deadlands, the tomb of the First King. Living men tried to break his army - they fell, and then joined the march. The Night King would not be denied._

_The city of graves fell, and the Night King stood on the highest point of the Great Barrow with his hands to the ground. Jon watched as the earth shuddered and rocked before the hill split wide open, spears of ice prying it open. The interior was hidden in shadows and snow, but from the dark, a figure emerged. It walked with the shape of a woman, though her skin was icy pale and her eyes burned like blue stars._

_The Night King walked to her, took her hand gently, and pressed his lips to her forehead; the sound of crackling ice filled the air, and Jon realized with a start that it was coming from the woman’s lips. She walked forward, out of his grip, and stroked a hand across one of the Others’ face. With her touch, the mummified appearance faded, wrinkles smoothing and flesh filling out, until the White Walker held a gaunt, sharp, ethereal beauty._

_Jon watched from above, staring in silent hate as she did this to all of them, while the Night King raised his hands. The ground beneath them writhed, as the dead of ten-thousand years pulled themselves from their rest. He cocked his head, after a moment, and crooked his finger - from the horde stumbled one, barrow-dirt still clinging to his ragged uniform. Jon could see, with his eagle eyes, a sigil on his breast, two quartered Targaryen dragons opposed by a moon-and-falcon in blue and a seahorse in green, but it was the dark-black longsword, clutched in its hands by its blued-steel handle, that drew his attention._

_The corpse walked to the Night King’s side, and offered the blade. The Night King took it, holding it from his side as if it were a live snake, before encasing it wholly in white ice. Covered from tip to pommel, he struck it against the ground, and the blade shattered to pieces. He turned, handled the bladeless hilt to Jon’s corpse, and walked back to the side of the woman. Jon could see the engraving on the handle, as his corpse listlessly dropped it, read ‘We Light The Way’ in beautiful, flowing script._

_Jon saw it all, from his vantage above, and hated._

 

* * *

_Jon did not know how long he was gone, this time, but when he next came back to himself, the sky was dark, and the army of the dead were arrayed against Winterfell. He was afraid he wasn’t going to get another chance to come back._

_Thousands upon thousands of wights shuffled and clattered in the snow, as the rejuvenated Others stood among them. The Night King stood at the back of the horde, lightly clasping the hand of the woman he had freed, staring with placid blue eyes at the seat of Northern power. Banners fluttered on the walls, pink flayed men one and all. The horde stumbled forward, and an arrow flew from the walls into a deep trench._

_The trench burst into flame, and many of the corpses burst with it. Jon wheeled in the sky and soared downwards, to the edge of the forest. There, the White Wolf stood, with the eldest of his progeny - and here Jon held back a cry, for these wolves were far older than last he remembered. The half-breeds had to be at least two years old, and larger than any natural wolf. He had lost so much time and not even realized; he was withering inside his feathers._

_The White Wolf stepped forward, and gently nuzzled against the bird’s curved beak. Jon loved him dearly, then. The beasts of the Wolfswood let out a howl against the dark, though their father remained silent, and then they charged._

_The half-breeds raced ahead, cutting a swath through the wights like a scythe through wheat. The White Wolf charged directly towards the Night King and his woman, spittle dripping from his bared fangs. The Night King turned to the beast, drawing his sword -_

_Jon screamed his fury, and dove feet-first, his talons tearing into the icy blue flesh of the inhuman creature. The Night King let out a sound like a shattering lake, and the White Wolf leaped -_

_Grabbing the wight next to the King with his teeth, and dragging it struggling behind him, as he raced forward._

_Jon screamed, and dug his talons in further, as all around him the beasts of the Wolfswood began to fall, overwhelmed by the numbers. He gouged out the eyes of the monstrosity with his talons tearing and ripping with his beak-_

_A cold hand touched him, and Jon fell numb. The woman beside the Night King plucked his avian body from the Night King’s face, and drew him close. Jon tried to struggle, but his wings were frozen to the pinions, and he could feel his life ebbing._

_“Hush, beastkin.” the woman whispered, in a mottled form of the Old Tongue so archaic as to be barely understandable. “Cease thy struggles, and know peace.”_

_Jon felt the darkness closing in, but he slowly turned to the side. He saw the White Wolf charging towards the fiery trench, the wight still clenched in it’s teeth. A line of dead bodies formed ahead of it -_

_The White Wolf jumped, leaping over the line in its entirety, and plunged headfirst into the fire._

_Jon felt, like a hand unclasping his heart, the moment his body caught flame. His eagle head dropped forward, losing what little strength it had._

_“Know peace.”_

_Darkness._

 

* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

When Jon awoke and felt the featherbed underneath his back, he was gasping for breath, ripping at the hand that was clutching his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is time, my friends. Life Five has come to an end, and Life Six is upon us. This is where shit starts getting weird. We’re gonna have fun with this one. Hehehehehe… We also come to one of the points where we learn just WHY I chose not to tag any pairings in advance. Huehuehuehuehuehuehuehuehue… One of y’all said that because of my writing they started shipping Jon and Val even though they’d never seen it before. Honey, you ain’t seen NOTHING yet. I hope I can have all your ships fucked up by the time I’m done.
> 
> And for those of you who thought that the Raven was the ultimate Big Bad… HUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUE. Ya mans is dead and we haven’t even gotten started. We are officially moving out of training wheels.
> 
> Question for the gallery: how many of you actually open up the links I post and listen to the songs as they read? Is it an enhancement to your experience to do so? Should I keep doing it? I hope you guys are using them, because I have quite a few thematically appropriate bangers lined up for future scenes. Let me know.
> 
> I want to give a massive shoutout to all of you who made this story get as big as it did. I just checked, and for all metrics - kudos, hits and bookmarks - we are now big enough that we’re all in the double-digit pages. That might be a weird tracker to keep, but for a fandom with over 30k stories, that means we’re all in the top 10% - for bookmarks, you all have put me in the top 1%. I can’t thank you enough, except by apologizing for my ‘one-page-a-day’ writing pace. I wish I was the type of dude who wrote faster, but I’m not. I’m picky like that. But hey, I made you an extra-long chapter, the longest one yet, so... it all works out in the end.
> 
> Last note: pour one out for the homie Doublehex, who has declared A Song Of Dragons to be dead as a doornail. That one hurts, man. Shit was fire. That on top of Serpentguy killing Dragons of Ice and Fire (and not even having the guts to update the story to say it's dead, he announced it in his own comment section)… all my heroes don’t want to play anymore. At least they had the courtesy to give us rough strokes of where their plots were going. I feel like I’m watching Gandalf and the Elves sail off into the distance - all the magic is leaving the world, now, and all we have left is ourselves and the ruins of greater men.


	11. Life Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once More, With Feeling.

The pain was hot enough to blind him, but Jon continued to flail helplessly at the burning fingers on his throat. His fingers, as dextrous as fat sausages and just as useless, tore at his neck’s skin as he flailed about. His thrashing slammed him against the stone wall, and then with a thump, rolled off the bed, smashing his head into the nightstand.

“What in the - Snow!” a voice called. The pain faded, just for a moment, and so Jon fell limp on the floor. Blood was trapped underneath his fingernails - he had ripped apart his own throat. “Snow!” a hand laid itself on his back. “Thumped yourself good, did you? You usually sleep like the dead.”

 _I know that voice._ Jon tried to move, but his wings were missing, and his legs were all wrong, gangly and blunt, and so all he succeeded in doing was flopping around on the ground. _Something is wrong. Why can’t I move? Why can’t I fly?_

“Snow? What on earth are you-” the voice gasped. “Jon!” 

He was rolled over roughly onto his back, where a face stared at him, blurry and indistinct. _No, he is not blurry… my eyes are weak. These are not my eagle eyes._ His left not-wing flopped across his body like a worm, smacking into his nose and groping it carelessly. _This is not my beak._

“Jon!” cried the voice over him. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you to Maester Luwin. We’ll get that bandaged.”

 _Who are you? I should know you…_ the world cleared, just an iota, and ruddy copper-red hair and blue eyes came into focus. _Oh… that’s right. It’s you. Robb Stark, my brother. My human brother. You died, but came back._

Jon’s head flopped back, and tried to speak; only a small keening sound, like the call of an eagle, came out of his throat. _Just like I did. I’m back. I died as an eagle, but now I am a man once more._

_But what does that mean? I don’t even remember.  
_

Robb began to drag him, but stopped, eyes wide. “Others take me… who did that to you?” Jon felt Robb’s fingers trace along his neck - a moment of panic took him as he felt them retrace the path the burning had left. Robb wrenched his hand away, covered in red, and visible in the blood’s reflection was a faint, pulsing blue-green handprint.

 

* * *

 

It took Jon two days to remember how to speak. It took three more to remember how to properly use his human body, to walk and eat and relieve himself with merely the use of a cane. 

All of his family visited him while he was in Maester Luwin’s care; Even Catelyn appeared, hovering over the shoulder of Sansa as his red-haired sister fretted and sighed at his bedside. Robb had spread the word that he had been attacked in his sleep throughout the castle - only the Starks were allowed to see the glowing handprint on his throat that proved the truth was something more malignant.

It was Ned, though, that lingered by his bedside the longest. When a Lord’s business did not call him away, he took all his meals at Jon’s side. When he was able to rise, and walk without leaning on someone’s shoulder, the first thing Ned did was hug him fiercely. Jon merely stood there and withstood it, arms hanging limp and staring blankly at the opposite wall. Immediately, he moved the both of them to his solar, and brought Maester Luwin with him.

“What have you discovered of the handprint, Maester Luwin?” Ned asked, softly but insistently.

“My library tells me nothing, my Lord. They have never seen the like in recorded history. Perhaps the Citadel would know more, and I have sent Archmaester Marwyn a raven with the particulars.” Luwin answered. “To tell truth, though I wear a Valyrian Steel link, it is the first time I have seen the higher mysteries with my own eyes.” 

“Nothing?” Ned’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve had five days to search, and you have not even the slightest idea?”

“Our records on higher mysteries are sorely lacking.” Luwin replied. “Many of our older records were burned on decree of King Baelor the Blessed, and magic is well-known to have left the world a long time ago, if it ever existed.”

“Left the world?” Ned swung his hand out, pointing directly at the pulsating mark. “There is your magic, Luwin! It is right in front of us, and it tried to strangle my son in his sleep! Magic robbed him of his full function for nearly a week, and you can tell me nothing!?”

“Magic is-” Luwin began, but bit back his rising tone. “In the Citadel, there are four Dragonglass candles, three black and one green, artifacts from Old Valyria from even before the Targaryens came to Westeros.” he continued, more softly. “When an acolyte has completed his training and is ready to say his Maesterly vows, he is locked in a lightless room with the three black candles, and will not be released until he has lit them.” 

Ned frowned, annoyed at the divergence. “And did you?”

“No. not even with my Valyrian Steel link, which only one in a hundred maesters wear.” Said Luwin. “And therein lies the point - because none have lit the candles. It is to prove that even with all our knowledge, there are still things that are impossible for us. No matter how much we learn, how to balance the humors and stymie fouling blood, or bend the resources of the world to our will through tenacity and wisdom, we cannot practice the higher mysteries the legends claim is possible.” Maester Luwin grimaced. “And now you ask me to enlighten you to this attack. As well ask me why the seasons do not track with the rotations of the stars, or what lands are south of Sothoryos. No man alive in the Seven Kingdoms knows the answer.”

“Unbelievable.” 

“It does not matter.” Jon said softly. Ned immediately whipped around to face him. “I know who did this to me.”

“You do?” Ned leaned inwards. “Tell us.”

“A Greenseer.” Said Jon, eyes hooded. “A thing called the Three-Eyed Raven. It has stolen the body of Brynden Rivers, otherwise known as Bloodraven.”

“Bloodraven…!” 

“One of the Great Bastards of Aegon the Unworthy.” Replied Luwin, eyes wide. “There were many queer tales of Brynden Rivers, during the Blackfyre Rebellions. ‘How many eyes did Lord Bloodraven have’, asked the old riddle, and ‘A thousand eyes and one’ it answered. But he disappeared beyond the Wall. And he would have to be ancient, over a hundred years old.”

“He was tied into the roots of the Weirwood trees.” Jon shook his head. “It was through them that -”

He stopped. His mouth dropped open, and his eyes widened. “The Weirwood… it was the WEIRWOOD!”

“The Weirwood?” Ned asked in confusion.

Jon leaped out of his chair, fisting his hair and pulling until his curly roots strained. “Oh, I am a great FOOL! You know _nothing,_ Jon Snow! ‘I told him in front of the Heart Tree’, he said! ‘The Stark has named you’, he said! I PRAYED in front of the damned thing! I even promised to kill him in front of one!” He slammed the tip of his cane into the stone floor with a loud CLACK! “And the damned Black Gate, when I said my name - OOOoooh, I am THICK! I am thick as a brick! My gravestone will read ‘Here lies Jon Thick, son of Rhaegar Thickgaryen, lord of the Seven Damned THICKdoms. He died because he knew absolutely NOTHING.’ I’m a damned FOOL.”

Ned’s face turned pale as parchment. “J-Jon, how did you-”

“Don’t you see!?” Jon whirled. “He doesn’t know I exist until he’s _told_ I exist! He can’t find me unless somebody gives him a warning in front of the Weirwood! The Children carved faces so the Old Gods could see us - but the Raven is watching, too! Yet somehow I’ve blinded him - he keeps saying I’ve stolen his sight, and he wants me-” 

Jon straightened, and immediately hobbled to the door of the Solar and wrenched it open. His head swiveled around outside the doorframe, before slamming it shut once again and stalking back to his padded seat. “Everything that I say here must _not_ leave this room.” Jon said, soft but fierce. “If you breathe a word of it to another, and they mention any of it in front of a Heart Tree, I will likely be dead within days, and nothing would annoy me more than to fail a sixth time.”

“Jon-”

“Swear it.” Jon cut him off, pointing the wooden cane at him. “Swear it on Lyanna’s bones.” Ned gaped, wide-eyed - he looked as though he were having a heart attack.

“Jon, you don’t speak to your father that way-”

_“Swear it.”_

“... I… I swear it…”

Jon whirled on the Maester; the soft-spoken maester’s further words of reproach died in his throat as Jon’s eyes flashed sable. “... I swear it.” 

“Good.” Jon grabbed a large roll of parchment in one hand and an inkpot between his thumb and pointer finger, before slapping them down. 

“Jon, what are you doing?” Asked Luwin, as Jon began to draw. 

“The Raven,” said Jon, re-dipping the quill and hastily sketching out landmarks, “is beyond the Wall.” Maester Luwin frowned even deeper, but allowed him yet another ill-mannered slight. “North of the Milkwater, east of the Fist, southwest from the headwaters of the Antler.” he slashed an X into the map, and pushed it across the solar’s desk - he’d drawn a crude map of the lands beyond the Wall. “It’s within a twenty-mile radius of that X, give or take five miles. I got a very good look from above.”

“Above?” Asked Maester Luwin. “What are you-”

“That’s not important. I’m telling you this so that you know where I am going.” Jon cut him off. “You can trace my path with this, if you compare it to my starting point at the Nightfort. I will be leaving shortly - ah!” he held up his hand to Ned Stark. “It must be me, for he doesn’t know I exist - any other men would be killed long before they reached him, by fang or antler or claw. What matters right now is what I saw.” 

He turned to Luwin. “Maester Luwin, there is a Valyrian Steel blade buried in the hinterlands of Barrowton. I don’t know how or why, but it’s a one-handed longsword, thicker at the base than usual, with the words ‘We Light The Way’ etched in gold into the steel handle - it was carried by a man wearing a sigil of two quartered Targaryen dragons, with House Arryn’s moon-and-falcon and House Velaryon’s seahorse. Have you any idea of what I speak of?”

Luwin reeled backwards. “Well, that’s - how do you know this? That sigil is…” he frowned, his brow furrowed. “That… was Rhaenyra Targaryen’s personal heraldry. The Arryn falcon for her mother, and the Velaryon seahorse for her first husband. The Blacks used it as their standard during the Dance of the Dragons, that blood-soaked civil war. And Barrowton, you say? ‘We Light The Way’ are the house words of House Hightower, in the Reach - and you should know that, Jon, I taught you better than that. That couldn’t be…” 

“What?”

Luwin’s eyes were wide. “Vigilance. The ancestral sword of the Hightowers, in the Reach. It was lost during the Dance in the first Battle of Tumbleton, when Roderick Dustin and his Winter Wolves reinforced the Blacks, and he slew Ormund Hightower in combat. The entire town was razed in dragonfire afterwards, and none could locate it.” 

Now his eyes were twitching rapidly - Jon could see the Maester running through his histories in his head. “But if a Winter Wolf turned a Broken Man and looted the blade before the burning, and returned home with it… Yes, winter fever was rampant in the North near the end of the Dance, so if our Winter Wolf succumbed, he might have even been buried with the blade to hide it - perhaps the Hightowers had the same thought and were searching for it. I can’t imagine those that hid the blade with our Broken Man would have left it there unless they died as well, which we cannot rule out during a plague.”

“... How do you know all this, Jon?” Ned asked, quietly. 

“A dream.” Jon answered flatly.

“If you gleaned this from a dream, then it’s a remarkably plausible theory.” Luwin rapped his knuckles against the table. “Given your... circumstances, I won’t rule out prophetic dreams, just the once. My Lord, you should mount an expedition to Barrowton with all haste; if you will it, I will send a raven ahead of you. For how many graves lie in the Barrowlands, you will need the knowledge and manpower of the Dustins. The Hightowers are as rich as Lannisters - the Citadel owes them patronage, and they own one of the largest banks in the Seven Kingdoms, to say nothing of the fact that Mace Tyrell’s lady is a Hightower.”

“Aye, I see it.” Ned nodded. “There are starving houses who would rather sell a daughter for her dowry than give up their ancestral Valyrian blade. To return a sword a hundred years missing would make one of the most powerful and well-connected houses of the Reach a staunch ally of the North.” His eyes lidded. “And Winter is Coming.”

“There was something else, along with the sword.” Jon cut in. “I know who is buried in the Great Barrow. It was a White Walker.” Maester Luwin’s eyebrows shot up. “It had to have been. She was beautiful, with eyes like burning stars, but her skin was paler than fresh snow, and her touch could trap you in a block of ice with a touch.”

Luwin snorted. “A female Other? This, I believe less. You’ve been listening to too many of Old Nan’s stories, Jon.” Jon turned to face Luwin, eyes piercing. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Bran when he had nightmares - the Night’s King was likely real, given the plain truth that no fort along the Wall has any defenses built towards the south, but his supposed heresies and atrocities as the thirteenth Lord-Commander are merely a ghost story. His ‘Corpse Queen’ is almost certainly a myth.” 

The Maester leaned back. “And though we know not who is entombed in the Great Barrow, it is always suggested it was a King - never a Queen. They say it is the grave of the First King, who led the First men across the Arm of Dorne, or perhaps a mythical King of the Giants. More likely, it is one of the early Barrow Kings, whom the Dustins claim descent from. The Corpse Queen is more likely a daughter of House Dustin, given their cadaver-like appearance, and both she and her husband are long dead.”

Jon flopped backwards bonelessly. “The Corpse Queen…” he whispered, eyes wide. Now, he remembered the stories. The thirteenth Lord-Commander, who Old Nan insisted was a Brandon Stark, who gave both his seed and his soul to a woman as pale as the moon, and waged war upon the south in the name of dark gods. 

“The Corpse Queen is real…” he fell face-first into his hands. “All manner of grumpkins and snarks are coming alive all around me. How many more legends will I find before I am free?” 

A beat of silence passed, before Jon lifted his head once more. “No. It doesn’t matter how many monsters I find. I’ll kill them, too.” he stood, glaring. “I have all the time in the world.” he hobbled to the door and threw it open.

“Jon!” Ned shouted. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to kill the thing who put this handprint on my neck.” Jon snapped. “I’d like to return the favor properly.”

“You do not have my permission to leave.” 

“Does a bird need your permission to fly?” said Jon, moving remarkably fast for a man with a cane. “You haven’t been my Lord for a long time, Nuncle.”

“Jon! JON!” 

 

* * *

 

Jon had gathered half of the supplies he needed before he was captured. 

Jory Cassel had approached with half-a-dozen of the household guard, an easy disarming smile on his lips. “Your father says you’re not well.” he said. “Lord Stark has suggested that you be resting now.”

Jon glared, and slammed the package of food into his burlap sack before dragging his high-necked collar tighter to hide the handprint. “Tell the Lord Stark that if he’s too much of a coward to say it himself and hear what I have to say, then I don’t need to listen to him.” 

The smile slipped from Jory’s lips, and his eyes narrowed. “He was right, then. Your sickness has left you irritable, and without your manners. Come along, lad.” 

Jon whipped his cane up, directly at Jory’s face. “Touch me and pay for it.” now all good humor was gone, and one of the household guards scoffed and reached for Jon; he was rewarded with the cane being rapped across his ears. Now the rest of the guard surged as one, and Jon attacked with a disproportionate fury, swatting them away with painful blows. Eventually, Jory snarled, his eye swelling, and detached his leather-sheathed blade from his belt and met the wooden weapon with his own. 

The cane was knocked wide, and a fist slammed into Jon’s stomach, knocking the wind from him. The household guard swarmed over him, gripping him by all limbs as Jon spat obscenities at them all, hauling him through the courtyard for all to see. They dragged him into the keep, never letting him touch the ground as he writhed, before bodily throwing him inside the cell for high-ranking prisoners, and locked it behind them. “CRAVENS!” Jon shouted through the door. “Dung-headed incompetents!” 

“You’re going to cool your head here until your sickness has cleared from your body, on orders from Lord Stark.” Answered Jory flatly, from the other side. “Any man can tell that you’re not yourself.” 

Jon screamed animalistically, and leaped at the door feet-first, attacking it as a raptor would. All he accomplished was bouncing off of it, and slamming his shin into his bed. 

Once he had finished rolling about, clutching his injured leg, he flopped spread-eagle across the floor. “Why did they stop me?” he asked the room. “How dare they? I have to kill the Raven - his magic nearly killed me. Somehow, he knows I exist, even though I never told the Weirwood.”

His eyes narrowed. “Was he wearing Jory’s skin? That’s why he -” he shook his head. “No, if he was I would have a sword through me. Not Jory.” his eyes narrowed. “But he was following orders… and though I told those two not to speak to the Heart Trees…” his eyes narrowed hatefully. “That facestealing sorcerer has locked me away, until he has a chance to run a sword through me. I won’t give him the chance, then.”

He glanced around the room. The door was made of a thick hardwood, and no windows to the outside existed, though the beds appeared soft and full of furs. There was a single unlit candle and a striker on the nightstand, but it certainly wasn’t enough to try and burn his way through the door. A chest was placed at the foot of the first bed, but the thing was empty of anything useful. 

Jon angrily kicked at the door once more, before sitting down once more. “There is nothing to free me from the inside, then.” he said aloud. He walked to the door. “Guard! Guard!” He called. “I require water!” 

Silence answered him. 

He grinned, slightly, and walked over to the bed, sitting down cross-legged. “Two can play at your game.” Jon closed his eyes and reached…

And was blown backwards on the mattress, slamming his head against the wall, as a voice in the distance screamed in pain and shock. Jon lay there, hyperventilating, as the anguished cries of Jory Cassel slowly faded. “By the Old Gods and New…” Jon gasped; underneath his collar, the handprint of the Raven throbbed and pulsed in time with his breathing. _It was like trying to grab a Shadowcat by its tail; the moment my hand closed, it whirled and bit my face off._

_And the thing that stole Bloodraven, that stole Bran, could do it to anybody from half a continent away._

Jon closed his eyes, a scowl working onto his features. He wouldn’t allow the setback to stop his plans for freedom. He wouldn’t lie here waiting for the Raven to gut him. He needed to think. “You can take beasts, because they are simple - they cannot tell their thoughts from somebody else’s. Men are strong in will; they know themselves.” he muttered, running through his lessons. “So how do I find a man who is weak-willed, and doesn’t know himself? Weak enough for…” 

He trailed off. “Aaaaaaah.” He cooed, grinning sharply. “Oh, Bran. You stupid, stupid boy. I see it now, brother. If only you hadn’t been so clever, none of this would have happened to me.” he resettled himself on the bed, closed his eyes again, and reached…

_This time, there was no resistance. It was like a sword sliding into a sheath; his mind had been hollowed out by something long ago, and left a welcoming hole for one such as him. He straightened up to his full, towering height, and softly patted the horse he was stabling. “Hodor.” he said, gently, before turning and walking away with more energy and purpose than the mental invalid had held for years._

 

* * *

 

Jon opened his eyes at the same moment the door to his cell opened, leaping to his feet. “Hodor! Hodor!” Hodor screamed, clutching his head and backing away in a terrible fright. 

“Those are mine.” Jon picked up the fully assembled travel kit and slung it onto his back. He stepped towards the door, but stopped mid-stride, wrinkling his brow as the stablehand refused to even look at him. “They’ll catch me.” he said aloud. “I’ve been able to escape before because nobody sought to stop me. But they’ll stop me now… unless they’re distracted.” 

He looked up at the cowering stablehand, and a twisted grin broke from between his lips. “And didn’t I make a promise, all those years ago?” with careful movements, he closed the door so that it did not locked, and sat down against the foot of the bed. “You will make such an uproar, not a man will see me slip out the Hunter’s Gate.”

His grin spread wider as he heard thundering footsteps race away from his door, and he thought of a man who YET AGAIN stole what belonged to the Starks -

_He pulled himself to a stop, and cracked his neck. Somewhere deep inside of him, a small, wretched thing was screaming in incoherent fear, but he was strong enough to silence it. He was in control, now._

_“Hodor.”_

_He reoriented himself, and took off with a purposeful stride. He had a feeling he knew where to find who he was looking for._

_Nobody stopped him along the way - not the guards, not the servants. Nobody questioned the presence of the stablehand, except maybe to give lingering side-eyes and quiet jibes to their companions. The benefits of being well-known as a simpleton._

_It did not take him long to find his target - the Squid Prince was never subtle in his dealings. He wandered into the training courtyard, as Theon nocked a bow and loosed it. The arrow flew with deadly accuracy, and thudded into a target studded with arrows, clustered in a circle less than three inches in diameter._

_He looked around, and saw that the courtyard was relatively empty for the time of day with only a single guardsman practicing with a wooden training spear, and the Master-at-arms Ser Rodrik Cassel was nowhere to be found. He smiled wickedly, an expression wholly unfit for his usually-slack face, and cracked his knuckles loudly. Deep down inside, a part of him began to scream even louder._

_He started forward, and Theon turned to face him at the noise. His nose wrinkled, though his cocksure smile never slipped. “You lost? This isn’t the stables. You there, with the spear. Help the retard find his way-”_

_His massive fist swung out, slamming into Theon’s face and throat with the force of a battering ram. The Squid Prince flew several feet away, choking loudly, too stunned to even grasp his throat. “Hodor!”_

_“HEY!” shouted the guard, whipping his spear about to point at him. “Stop! Stop right there!” he ran forward, speartip pointed upwards at his face. “Hodor, I’m warning you-”_

_His hand whipped out to grab the head of the spear, and with a flex of his arm snapped it in two. The guard only had a moment to shout his surprise before He slapped him with the flat wooden blade of the practice spear, and as he was reeling take a massive stomping kick to the chest that blew him backwards._

_He snorted, derisively-_

_Pain burst open in his back, and a shout of agony ripped from his lips in the same timbre as the terrified screams in his mind._

_“HELP! GUARDS!”_

_He whirled as fast as his clumsy feet would let him and charged; Theon let out a terrified scream and nearly fumbled nocking the second arrow. He loosed it, and the arrow punched into his gut, but He didn’t let the pain break his control, and He slammed into Theon with the force of a charging auroch._

_A spurt of blood flew from Theon’s lips as His entire body weight carried him down to the ground. The Greyjoy tried to breathe, but it turned into a scream as He crunched his wrist inside his meaty fingers. “AAAAAAAAH! GUAAAARDS!”_

_He repositioned himself over his prey, looked him directly in the eye, and let just a little of his power slip. Theon’s expression only grew more pale. “What- What are you!? WHAT ARE - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”_

_He made good on the promise he had made, a lifetime ago- Theon Greyjoy died screaming._

 

* * *

 

Jon lifted and drew his bow in a single smooth motion, tracking the point of the arrow to a fat rabbit sneaking between a pair of trees, he slowly inhaled, exhaled, focused his mind, dropped his fingers away-

The world turned blurry, and the teen’s arms jerked wildly. The arrow loosed far wide, and slammed into the trunk of the tree with a loud crack. By the time Jon regained control, the rabbit was gone. His temper flared, and let out a loud wildling curse. The handprint on his neck dimmed once more, back to it’s muted heartbeat pulsing.

That was the tenth animal in a row he had taken aim at this week, and missed. He’d take a wild guess and assume that the arrow was unsalvageable from the tree trunk, as well. He had packed for his food supplies to be supplemented by wild game, but he had fallen short in nearly all respects. 

“Blast.” Jon pushed himself off of his knees, and began trudging through the snow. He wasn’t even sure why he had packed that way. He knew the travel distance to reach the Raven’s cave and then to reach Castle Black; he’d only barely packed enough to even reach the cave.  He wasn’t in the habit of making such blunders.

He shook his head. _No point in second-guessing myself._ The handprint pulsed, and his eyes narrowed. _I have more than enough supplies to kill the Raven._  

He slung the bow over his shoulder, and continued onwards, leaving the arrow embedded in the tree trunk. If he had looked, he would have seen the arrow was in unblemished condition.

 

* * *

 

While the _qworking_ echo was what first dragged him from slumber, when Jon rolled over in his tent and jabbed himself in the cheek with a sharp rock, he came awake with a bleary curse of pain. It was only after he wriggled the irritant from the ground and angrily chucked it from the flap that he noticed the cold, and the fingers of hoarfrost creeping across the ground. 

Jon burst into frenzied movement, snatching his pack up from where he had laid it and drawing his blade. His fire was dead with the stack of logs only half-burned, and his campsite was surrounded by a thick bank of morning fog. Over his head, a murder of crows on the wing rattled and cawed. His head swiveled all about, staring with a fevered intensity, until at last he saw it - a pair of blue eyes, piercing through the fog like lamps.

Immediately, he took off in a run, sheathing his blade and wrenching his pack higher on his shoulders to not unbalance himself. He had a resin-soaked bundle of rags in his pack, but there wasn’t nearly enough time to attach them to arrows. With neither fire nor Valyrian Steel at his side, he could only hope to outrun the wights.

All around him, the forests came to life with the sound of stumbling feet stomping through fresh snow. He evened the bellow of his lungs as well as possible in a sprint, and leaned forward. A rotten hand reached out from behind a tree, to which Jon jinked away from and continued the charge. All around him, the sound of crows continued - ‘Go, Go, Go!’ they called.

He could not have run half a mile before his legs failed him, and Jon fell face-first to the snow. As he pushed himself to his feet, wobbly, the fog began to clear behind him, and hundreds of cold, burning eyes stared at him. The air now was cold enough to crackle as he exhaled. The mob of dead flesh parted, and from the ranks came forward the leader. The shriveled, mummified face of a White Walker stared at him without expression, as the air around them grew nearly too cold to breathe. 

“...Fuck.” Jon cursed, as he slowly drew his castle-forged steel blade - wholly inadequate, he knew, against his foe. “You came right for me, didn’t you? The same way you did before.” he slapped his free hand against his neck, and in the snowy reflection he could tell the mark was glowing bright. 

The Other stared at him, it’s beard fluttering in a frozen breeze. 

Jon lifted his blade higher. “Come on, then.” Jon snarled. 

The Other drew from it’s hip a razor-thin, crystalline blade, and slowly lowered it to its side. The air was so cold it burned the inside of jon’s lungs, and what little light filtered through the fog danced and refracted off of dancing specks of floating frost. All around him, trees popped and groaned, and a branch exploded into fragments behind the Other as the water inside the wood flash-froze and expanded too quickly to resist against.

“I won’t make it easy for you.” 

The White Walker stepped and swung, and as Jon blocked the blade with his own, the blade sang with a keening note. ‘Run, run, run’ called the crows overhead. A dozen wights stepped forward in unison as Jon chopped at the White Walker’s head, and were dive-bombed as the crows pecked and clawed at their faces.

With a roar, Jon slammed the crystalline blade down, and slashed at the Other’s face. The blade swung perfectly, arcing into the creature’s neck - and stopped with the sound of clanging ice. The Other thrust his blade forward towards Jon’s belly, and only a wild dodge saved him. The air grew even colder, and past the throbbing sound of blood Jon could hear tree branches exploding all around him. The Other raised it’s blade up, and Jon slashed to meet it-

The blade exploded in Jon’s hands as it met the Other’s sword.

 Jon let out a scream of pain as jagged metal shards lanced across his body, fiery pain blooming across his left eye. The Other’s expression shifted to a fractional smirk and slashed at Jon’s defenseless torso, but the boy dropped backwards to dodge, carried by the weight of his pack. He popped up, holding a thin uneven sliver of the sword in his hand, as blood burned hot down his skin and eyelid. He howled in blind rage, and lifted it up to stab.

‘Ax! Ax! Ax!’ called a crow, darting up and away from the clawing murder attacking the wights. Jon stopped, eyes wide, and lowered his blade. The handprint on his neck flared brighter, but Jon darted back and further back, and quickly slung the woodsman’s ax from the loop on his pack. As he flung the leather headcover from the blade, the Other glared. The air chilled even further, and behind the creature of ice and death, a tree branch exploded.

Jon scowled. “I won’t kill you with an ax, will I?” he backed away even further, and the White Walker followed just as slowly. Only when Jon’s path was halted, his back hitting an obstruction, did his expression change to victory. “Then I’ll just slow you down.”

He turned and slid away, and heaved the woodsman’s ax above him. With a loud roar, it bit deeply into the trunk of a towering tree. The Other stopped, and cocked it’s head. Jon ripped the head out and let out another roar, and the ax hacked out a miniscule wedge. The Other straightened, and raised it’s sword as it stepped forward. Jon let out one more howl, and chopped into the tree for a third time.

The tree shuddered, crackling noises filling the air suddenly. Jon ripped the ax from the tree and dove away, as ice burst out from the wound he had hacked open. The Other only had a moment to react before the trunk exploded outward with the force of Wildfire. The aged tree, which has survived a hundred years and a dozen winters untouched, groaned and toppled, and crushed the White Walker and a handful of wights under its bulk.

Jon gasped, for just a moment, before reslinging the ax on his back. He took only a second to see that the wights had not dropped where they stood - despite the brutal weight, the White Walker was still alive. ‘Run! Run!’ qworked the crows, as they lifted away from the wights as one, and Jon did not question it. He took off as fast as his body would allow him, and the dead followed.

He did not know how long he ran to the north, or if he was even running north anymore, for he simply chased the feeling of ‘less cold’ like a bloodhound. Behind him, the wights followed, slow but implacable. The Other was nowhere to be seen, but that was little comfort - he had no other gambits to use.

After a time, his legs finally failed him, and Jon tumbled to the frozen ground, gasping for air and legs trembling like jelly. His hands clutched and dragged against the snow, but his strength had left him. Behind him, the slow crunching heralded the silent horde of undead chasing him. With a snarl, Jon pushed himself to a sitting position, and pulled the ax from off of his pack- 

“Get up!” 

Jon jerked his head up at the shout, the first time he had heard a human voice other than his own in weeks. The crows, always chasing after him, had thickened into a black-winged frenzy, and over their calls he could hear a wild galloping. From within the forest, a dark shadow was  racing forward. Jon pushed his screaming legs underneath him and stumbled to his feet, as the dark shadow revealed itself to be a black-clad figure riding on the back of a massive elk.

The figure reached out a black hand to Jon as he rode forward. Jon grit his teeth, burst into a run, and jumped. His hand met the stranger’s, and with a wild swing seated Jon on the back of the Elk. the beast bellowed and nearly tripped, but the man, who Jon could now see was dressed in the blacks and greys of the Night’s Watch, called something in a ringing sibilant tongue, and the beast steadied itself and galloped away. The wights disappeared behind them into the fog.

“Thank… the Old Gods and New.” Jon gasped. “You’re… a long way… from the Wall, brother.”

“Even here, I can serve the realms of Men.” said the Brother, his voice pitched high and rattling. “When the Cold Ones began to track your movements from many leagues away, I followed.”

Jon’s hand slapped instinctively up to his neck, folding over the mark.

“Never have I seen a man draw their ire in the manner that you have.” said the rider. 

“I’ve made myself a particular enemy... of the restless dead.” 

“So it seems.” the sound of the elk’s galloping and jon’s slowly-steadying breaths filled the silence between them, before the rider reached down to rest his black glove on the pommel of his weathered sword hilt. “You called me Brother for my garb.” said the rider, his strange voice taking on a sinister edge. “Yet your colors are wrong.”

Jon, after a moment of staring at the hilt, understood. _He thinks I’m a deserter._ And yet, now that he was thinking on it, Jon had never seen this brother before, or even heard of him. Even if he had been part of the other keeps, he would have seen the records of him at Castle Black. 

“My watch has ended.” he said, flatly.

“There is only one way your watch ends.” said the rider.

“I’m glad we are on the same page, then.”

“You have a remarkable vivacy and rosy hue, for a dead man.” 

“Shall I rip open my leathers and show you where the blade took me in the heart?” Jon snapped, his right hand clenching harder around the handle of his ax.

After a moment that stretched out into several, the rider shook his head and lifted his glove away from the pommel. “Well met, then. Be glad your eyes have remained the Stark grey, in that case.” said the rider. “There is undeath enough between the two of us without inviting the revenant blue.”

The meaning of his words escaped Jon, for a moment, until his left arm instinctively clutched tighter around the rider’s waist from a wild leap by the elk. It dug into the man’s stomach - which had remained perfectly flat during the entire ride. The hooded figure hadn’t taken a single breath since Jon had mounted. 

Jon’s eyes widened in horror - his eyes immediately tracked to the man’s cold hands - not gloved, as he had initially thought, but bare hands, blackened to the color of pitch from frostbite and decomposition. “You… your hands...”

The rider with the cold hands lifted his arm up into the air. His sleeve pulled by an inch, revealing the skin underneath to be a bloodless, pale color. “When a man’s heart stops beating, the blood pools in the extremities. While the rest of his body turns the color of milk, his hands and feet swell, and turn as black as pudding.” his rattling voice pitched higher, a bad impression of a singular laugh. “Fear not, Brother - I have been this way for longer than you have been alive.”

Jon said nothing, but his grip on the wooden ax handle tightened until it creaked. images of a First Ranger, face shriveled and puckered, danced behind his eyelids. Undead, buried under a wave of undead. Dark eyes, not blue - raised by other, eldritch forces.

“Where does your ranging take you, Brother? I would aid you, as I’m able.” asked the revenant with cold hands, never looking backwards. “Or are you able to return to Castle Black and the realms of men, as I am not?”

“ _The Raven…_ ” Jon hissed - his vision narrowed to a point - the point of the revenant’s hood where his neck connected to his shoulders. The handprint _throbbed_.

“The Rave-”

The ax connected with the revenant’s neck with a wet **THUNK** \- the elk let out a squealing yelp as it toppled to the side at the movement, bringing the two men down to the snow. Jon landed lightly and away from the bulk of the beast, but the revenant’s leg let out a loud **CRACK** as it snapped under the enormous animal. With a roar, the bastard ripped the ax from the dead man’s neck and swung it down once more, severing the connection in a single chop. A third strike split the head in two horizontally, and black blood spewed outwards as if from a burst grape. 

Immediately, Jon whirled and began hacking at the limbs of the revenant - first the arms, breaking away as though they were twigs, and then the legs. The elk had pulled itself to it’s feet and darted away, but with a final swing, Jon buried the ax in the limbless torso of the dead man, before toppling to the ground, eyes pure white. 

The elk had traveled nearly beyond the sight of the attack, but gently it returned, eyes flickering white. It stood there silently for a moment, before Jon gasped and immediately stood to his feet, eyes once again dark grey. With a deft hand, he ripped the sword belt from the revenant’s hips and attached it to his own. He snapped his fingers once, and the elk, now meek, lowered itself just enough to allow Jon to hoist himself to it’s back. 

With a rough kick to the beast’s side, which caused it to bellow in pain, the elk took off at a gallop, and Jon left the desecrated corpse behind, never once looking at the face beneath the hood.

 

* * *

 

The elk died, three days later. Jon did not care that he had ridden it to death, that it was not a horse made for endurance - he merely cared that the wights were hopelessly behind him, and that the beast would feed him the rest of the way to the Raven. He skinned it, butchered and portioned as much of it as he was able to carry, and set off, leaving the carcass behind without a second thought. 

Without the elk, he would have starved to death. With the meat from the beast, he still nearly did. It wasn’t until a day later when he tried to cook the meat that he realized his mistake. “Why in the Seven Hells did I leave the ax behind!?” he shouted aloud, as he stared at the stack of unchopped firewood. That was beyond a rookie mistake - this was something that no man with any experience in the wilderness would have done, and he had decades of hard living to speak of his experience. 

_And yet I didn’t think once about retrieving my gear._

He made due, eventually - finding smaller pieces, small enough to be worked by the revenant’s sword - but the meat nearly went to waste for being unable to cook it. And now, Jon knew there was a bigger problem. Something was wrong with him. Something in his mind was off, to the point of near-suicidal foolishness. He wasn’t sure how long something had been wrong with him, or why - but a gnawing feeling of discomfort in his gut told him he’d done something else wildly stupid, and couldn’t even recognize it; It was only the brutal obviousness of the ax that had tipped himself off.

He took his time, then, moving more methodically through the forests beyond the Wall. not so slowly as to allow the dead to catch up with him, but enough that he could pay more attention to himself and his surroundings. Smaller kindling, directional markers, game nests - things he should have noticed off-hand, but now had to strain himself to catch. 

It was on one of those days that his stretched senses caught the far-off scraping of wood. Jon lowered himself down and crept through the brush, tracking the sound. There were no tracks, but the sound grew louder and louder, until the forests cleared. Jon’s eyes widened. An enormous bull moose, of similar size to the beasts that had attempted to run him down a lifetime ago, was grinding it’s horns against an enormous Heart Tree on a hill - a Weirwood he had seen before. 

A predatory grin spread across Jon’s face. “Found you.” he whispered. Slowly, carefully, he crept across the open space between the edge of the green forest and the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven. The bull moose never once raised its head from it’s vandalization. No assailant sprang from the ether to stop him. He made it across the way, and into the open cave. With the distance cleared, and in the mouth of the cave, Jon stood to his full height and drew the stolen blade on his hip with as little noise as possible.

He had crossed through two gaping caverns without incident. It was in the third that he encountered his first Children, two of the creatures tending to some cultivated patch of mushrooms. He sprung forward and thrust his blade through the back of one’s neck, and it died before it could make a sound. The second let out a loud scream, like fingernails on glass, but died just as easily as the first. 

“Come on, then.” Jon declared, flicking off the blood from the edge of his blade. “You know I’m here now - test your luck against me.” the tip swept upwards, and Jon disappeared into the tunnels.

But nobody did.  Not for the first cavern. Not in the second, and not in the third, where the skeleton of the giant bats hung. Jon Snow’s eyes narrowed. This was the cavern just before he had been attacked by dozens of Children in the tunnels. They had tried to ambush him to whittle down the advantage from the ice bear and Varamyr. 

But he was alone now, and yet he hadn’t even been attacked once. His grip on the undead Watchman’s blade tightened, and the leather handle creaked under the strain. Something was wrong. He was _missing_ something. 

Aware once more of his unnatural carelessness, he raised the blade up once more, and pressed forward. The tunnels narrowed overhead - a forceful twitch in his wrist reminded him of the phantom sensation of cleaving through Children of the Forest in the exact location he was standing. 

Nobody attacked him. No spears rushed at him from the dark. Even his footsteps were muffled by a thin layer of moss carpeting the rock underneath him. Jon’s brow furrowed even as he reached the lip of the tunnel; the raging underground river echoed through the wider cavern, drowning out his approach utterly. 

 _It can’t be this easy._ If Jon stepped out from behind the lip of the tunnel, he would have an unblocked path to the Raven, wholly entwined with the Weirwood roots, unable to escape. _It can’t possibly be this easy. I’ve missed something. After all this time, it can’t be this easy._

He exhaled, slowly, hitched the blade higher, and leaped from the corner and charged. 

The Three-Eyed was there, slumped against the roots, one eye wide-open and pure white and the other a gaping cavity through which a pale root grew, unresponsive to Jon. the boy crossed the distance in seconds, and stopped right in front of the shriveled old man. The blotchy red mark on his neck was exposed, looking more like an abstract interpretation of a raven than the eerie depiction the Targaryen histories described it. The fiend looked more of a mummified corpse than a living being, and only the movement of his chest proved otherwise.

Jon swallowed a mouthful of spit, and traced the point of his sword over his chest. “You…” Said Jon, out loud. “You didn’t even know I was coming. You don’t even know I’m here, right now.” 

The Three-Eyed Raven said nothing in reply. 

Jon grit his teeth, placed his free hand over the pommel of his sword, and plunged it into the old man’s chest.

The Raven let out a shuddering gasp, his single eye fluttering back to a pure blood-red. It flicked up to Jon’s face, a look of uncomprehending confusion on his face. His mouth dropped open, and a sound that might have been the beginning of a word began. Jon jerked the blade hilt upwards, cutting further, and then ripped it out in a spray of blood.

The Three-Eyed Raven let out a soft, rattling sigh, and slumped forward.

Jon stared at the corpse, eyes wide. “Is… is that it?” Asked Jon, disbelievingly. “Is that it? No - no charge? No… resistance?” 

After a moment, the blade dropped from his loose hand. “It’s done, then.” He said. “He’s dead, and I… am free.” a moment’s pause. “... I don’t… am I free, now?” his hand slapped against his chest, as if feeling for a sign of the Red God’s curse leaving him. “I don’t… feel, any different.”

His legs became wobbly, for just a moment. “... what do I do now?” Jon asked softly, as he stared around the empty cave. His eyes flicked back to the corpse of the Raven - an old memory struck him. “Didn’t he have…?”

He stepped past the body, his hands digging through the thicket of moon-white roots that was the Greenseer’s throne. He quickly found what he was looking for, and more - not one, but two thin cloth-bundled parcels were hidden in the roots. His hands dragged out the larger of the two, and unwrapped it. An unstrung longbow the color of the roots revealed itself, of a high-quality make. The bowstring was waxed, and curled in a small bundle near the head - it had the appearance of age, and was clearly well-used, but had no obvious fraying and still appeared to be usable. 

Jon quickly bent the Weirwood bow to shape and strung it, and it gave good resistance - the weapon was taller than he was, a shade under six feet long. He placed his own smaller bow on the ground set the Weirwood weapon over his back before slowly unwrapping the second parcel. Here was the tool he was expecting; Dark Sister revealed its distinctive flame pommel. It was not nearly as large as the bastard sword that was Longclaw, and was slender even compared to standard longswords, but sliding just an inch of the steel from the well-tended leather sheath showed the mark of quality that was the Valyrian steel. 

He smirked, just a little, and attached the sheath to his sword-belt-

A loud scream startled him from his inspection. Jon’s head whipped to the sound, and saw at least three Children of the Forest standing on the bridge over the river, hands cocked back. 

_They were on the other side of the river-!_

“YOU HAVE DOOMED US!” One of them screamed, in the Common tongue, before hurling a Weirwood spear directly at Jon’s head. He lurched to the side, and it sailed past. Immediately, his hand reached to the new blade on his side, just as the two behind the leader hurled their tools. Not spears, like the leader, but two orbs of packed mud, and glowing as blue as the sea. 

A sudden spike of fear took Jon in the heart; he did not want to be hit by whatever magic made those orbs glow. He took a mighty leap to his right and forward, and the orbs passed by where he had been standing -

As soon as they touched the ground, twin gouts of flame exploded with a furious vigor. The heat scorched Jon’s back, and the incredible force slammed him forward into the wall. The world exploded into white, and he bounced off limply, rolling bonelessly to the edge of the river. 

Momentum carried him over. The ringing in his ears and white in his eyes disappeared in a torrent of ice-cold water. He swallowed a lungful of water, and came to the surface with a panicked gasp. His hand reached out to scrape futilely at the edge of the worn-smooth rock, before plunging back under. 

The river carried him under, swirling down, down, further down into the abyssal depths of the underground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huehuehuehuehuehuehue. The fun begins.
> 
> (If you’re concerned about Jon’s mental state, as I’m sure some of you will be, then I’ll take a moment to clarify something for you all - I’m working on a roadmap, and I know what I’m doing. Trust me. I despise edginess for edginess’ sake.)
> 
> I’d just like to take a moment to thank all of you who are into the fanfiction of ASOIAF. You may all have extremely fucked-up tastes on account of the fucked-up setting (helloooooo incest)... but at least when I click on the filters that do the counting, two-thirds of the stories aren’t M/M stuff. Yeesh. I’ve never regretted trying to quantify a fandom’s tastes faster than when I looked at the Boku no Hero Academia section. The Fujoshis are alive and well here. Like, I’m not gonna judge because I’m just as big a degenerate as the rest of you, but come on. Learn to come up with a better idea than ‘these two men are rivals, that must mean they actually want to fuck each other’, people. It happens every SINGLE time in anime fandoms. 
> 
> On a side note, I AM hardcore judging every single person who’s written a Ramsay/Theon story here. Come on. Really? You know what you’ve done wrong.
> 
> Last thing I want to mention: sorry that I’ve taken a while to push this out. I’ve been out of work since the end of September, and I’m having trouble finding a new job in my field. (you’d think they’d be clamoring for IT guys in this economy, but nope.) It’s been eating up my time, and sapping my motivation to write. However, somebody suggested to me that I could set up a tip jar for my writing through a Buy Me A Coffee account. I don’t like the idea of monetizing my writing, because it feels gross to do that for something that’s purely a hobby and isn’t even my own setting, but it would help me out, and it would definitely draw my mind back to the story every once in a while from job-hunting. 
> 
> So I’ll let you folks decide instead. Should I go ahead with setting up a tip jar for this, and would it be something you actually gave to? I won’t enable any kind of monthly subscription (because I've burned out before and I don't want you feeling like I'm screwing you for not having consistent uploads), and you wouldn’t get any kind of perks other than my profound gratitude. Let me know in the comments, and I’ll make my decision based on whatever you tell me to do. 
> 
> However it goes, hope you stick with me, folks. Life Six is gonna be fun.
> 
> EDIT: Welp. Apparently AO3 explicitly bans commercializing stories on here, so the tip jar idea would get me kicked off the site. Thanks to all of you who offered to help, but I'm pretty sure getting banned would be counterproductive. Worth a try, I suppose.


	12. Life Six: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is done in the dark will be brought to the light.

_“WEEPER! Enough running!”_

_“You don’t fucking give up, Crow! You and that ginger cunt want my sloppy seconds that badly, eh?”_

_“You don’t have enough cock to even fit it in, you blind whoreson, let alone the time. AH-AH! One more step to the ice and I’ll fill you full of arrows.”_

_“It’s over, Weeper. No more tricks.”_

_“... You dumb bastards. I’ve already won. Do you think this false spring will last?”_

_“The White Walkers are dead. I saw them die with my own eyes.”_

_“They were never alive to begin with! What is dead may never die! When they woke, it had already begun. The world will freeze, and the sun will not rise for a generation. And here you are, with half of your clans, hunting me and my men across the Frostfangs and all the way to the frozen shore. How many of your sons and daughters will starve because you weren’t there to hunt?”_

_“Sounds like some Woods Witch horseshit, to me. Did Mother Mole’s grave whisper that prophecy to you? Eh? Corpse gas fart that one in your ear?”_

_Enough, Weeper. Release Lady Val, and your death will be quick and painless.”_

_“Gwahahahaha! You don’t get it, Crow - or you, Giantsbane. It doesn’t matter if I die; I’m already dead. But now, you, and everything you love, will die when the true Long Night comes. You will die. Your Crows will die. Your Crow-lovers will die. Every single dirty whoreson kneeler who ever went south of that Wall will die. And you get to watch them wither away.”_

_“You…!”_

_“You’ve been chasing a ghost all along, Crow. And now this ghost will- AUGH! MotherFUCKER!”_

_“VAL!”_

_“I’m fine! Now gut the blind son of a bitch for me, Snow!”_

_“... So be it. I gave you a chance to end this well, Weeper. Now you’ll die choking on your own blood.”_

_“... You still can’t see it, Crow. You’ll never stop chasing ghosts, because you hold them tight. You’ll never learn to open your eyes and look away. Well, no matter to me - I’ll end your dream on the edge of my sickles. You’ll_ **_wake up, Jon Snow. WAKE UP._ ** _”_

* * *

Jon awoke with a panicked gasp, before letting out a series of wretched, hacking coughs. Water poured from his mouth as his arms feebly grasped at the wet stone underneath him. He was face-down, hanging off of some half-submerged shelf with his legs dangling into some pool, and nearby he could hear the thunderous echo of a waterfall.

Feeble hands scraped at smooth stone, as the water in his lungs turned to putrid bile, his eyes too clouded with pain to see. A scraping noise vaguely took his attention - somehow, he was still clutching Dark Sister in his fist, and the pommel had caught against a groove. With a single leverage point, he pulled himself forward by inches up a gentle slope of rock, before his strength left him and his head flopped down into a small puddle.

Every inch of fabric clung to him wetly, and he was soaked to the bone, causing him to shiver. More water came out in great hacking coughs, more than he thought possible. 

_Did… did I drown?_

Slowly, he dragged the blade forward hilt-first into the pitch black surrounding him and pulled himself forward. Inch by inch, he removed himself from the pool, though his arms felt weak as a kitten. His throat felt like sandpaper, and his eyes were swelling out of their sockets. With a final gasp, his feet pulled entirely from the water, and he flopped to his belly.

He laid there for an unknown amount of time, before his arm slowly snaked it’s way out of the pack pressing down on his chest. It fell with a loud sound of shifting and clanging equipment, and the clatter of wood against stone told him that Brynden Rivers’ weirwood bow had still been attached. He luxuriated in the lack of burden, before a small, niggling sense that he was forgetting something came to him.

He nearly ignored it, with how weary he was. But then, he remembered. _My mind is not my own, right now. I cannot trust my instincts._ The sound of the waterfall he had plunged down from drowned out all sound, but Jon still mumbled aloud meaningless half-words as his hands roamed across his body. He had lost remarkably little, and his pack was still sealed. 

It wasn’t until his fingers brushed against the nape of his neck that he realized - he was thoroughly soaked. “Shit.” he cursed, and immediately reached for his boots. _If I hadn’t stopped myself to think, I might have died from exposure from the cold and wet._ Already, his limbs were sluggish, and his fingers refused to move in the way they should. 

Even the mere act of stripping off his many layers helped - while not the same temperature as a well-insulated room in Winterfell, the air was remarkably warm for where he was in the world. Once naked, he hesitated, then grit his teeth and fumbled for the Weirwood bow. He took it in hand, and in a single strike broke it in half over his knee. 

It took a number of similar breaks to create suitably-sized sticks for a fire, but with a packet of shavings and a well-placed flint strike, they lit well. A sigh escaped Jon as even the meager flame penetrated through his drowned flesh, hovering over the flame. 

The fire was not strong, but even that faint light helped to reveal the parameters of his new surroundings. The grotto around him was smooth, damp stone of many hues. Stone stalactites dangled from the roof, and in the distance, the pool of water shuddered and rippled with the force of the waterfall. 

"... How far did I fall…?" Jon murmured. He reached out ardently to stroke a brighter streak of the wall - and did a double-take, as his fingers traced smooth wood. The streak was not stone, but Weirwood roots, burrowed through the impenetrable rock.

 He marvelled at the thought of trees so old their roots could crack the bedrock, then quickly began shaving off chunks of the wood as best his numb hands could. Only once the flames had greedily taken their fill, and after he had huddled by the fire long enough that his shivers subsided and the flames dipped low, did he open his pack.

It took him little time to fish out the resin-soaked rag bundle from their waterproofed leather pouch and tie them to the one portion of the bow he had preserved, but the torch lit, and the shadows of the tunnels fled. With a wry grin, he stuffed his only-mildly-dried clothing into the pack. 

“No point in modesty down here amongst the moles.” he remarked to himself, out loud. “I can tell clear as day that I am not in my right mind now, to consider this… but I can’t find it in me to care.” he slung the pack over his shoulders and set off down a snaking tunnel, naked as the day he was born. 

 _I’m feeling remarkably confident for a man who is likely to starve to death before he finds a likely-nonexistent path to the surface._ Jon thought to himself, as he swung the torch slowly across the path. _Perhaps I’ll luck out, and I’ve found Gorne’s Way for the first time in three-thousand years. Or, more likely, I’ll end up like the rest of the Cave People who never found the sun again, and starve to death chewing on rocks._

But he continued on, nonetheless. It was well-known amongst the Free Folk that the lands beyond the Wall were riddled with natural caverns and tunnels that extended far and wide. A pair of former Kings Beyond the Wall, the brothers Gendel and Gorne, had even led a wildling army from one side of the Wall to the other through the caves. The Free Folk claimed that when Gorne died in the invasion against the North, Gendel led his people back underground, but could not find his way out without his brother. The Cave People, at least those who found their way to the surface, claimed descent from those who were lost.

 _Nobody says out loud what the Cave People must have done to survive three-thousand years in the dark. But everybody thinks it. And everybody hates them for it, the way they hate the Ice-Rivers._ Jon didn’t even want to think of the other rumors he’d heard of them, of the dark gods they supposedly worshipped. With the Red God carved into his chest, those rumors might even be true.

If he was trapped down here for too long, he might begin to pray to one of them himself.

* * *

The cave tunnel, mercifully, did not turn into a dead end, and perhaps more importantly did not narrow to the point where the fire would snuff itself due to lack of air. That was a danger Jon only realized was present after an hour of walking, when he was lighting a second torch- if the air was stale enough underground, the fire could devour the air he himself needed, and he would suffocate long before he starved.

_Yet another danger I should have immediately recognized. This curse of suicidal foolishness is an insidious thing._

It gave Jon hope, though - it meant that no matter how far away it was, there was an exit. Somewhere in there, a place with enough exposure to the surface existed to create a cross-draft with the waterfall churning the air. He just needed to find it, before he starved to death.

It had been hours - or perhaps only minutes, for time had little meaning down where the light never shone - since he had eaten his last package of food, the bread sodden and crumbling, the honey runny from dilution. If he needed sustenance in the future, he would have to start with the leather from his boots. 

Some nondescript amount of time later, walking through the surprisingly spacious tunnels of twisting stone, the first change in scenery appeared in the form of a fork. To the left, a gradually narrowing path that grew more and more claustrophobically small - the light from his weirwood torch did not carry that far, but if he had to guess the narrowing would force him to crawl. To the right, a large, open path, with the sound of moving water if he strained his ears.

Jon licked his lips, suddenly parched, and started towards the rightward path-

A shining glint caught the corner of his eye, and he turned in an instant out of fighting instinct. But there was no blade in the dark lunging for him. Not even a figure. Jon narrowed his eyes, and slowly stepped forward, bringing his torch down to the ground, and examined his find. A single night-black stone, out of place with the grey rock around him - he would never have seen it without the glistening edge hewn in rough chunks reflecting against the torch. 

Jon slowly picked up the stone - more like molded rectangle, really - and gently pressed the single edge against his forearm. The pressure stung lightly, and a pinprick of blood welled along the touch. “Obsidian.” Jon whispered, eyes narrowed. “Only that stone holds an edge finer than steel.” The edge had been knapped to deadly sharpness, as he had seen some wilder men of the Free Folk do. It wasn’t shaped like a dagger, though, nor any other weapon he knew of. And it had fallen in the shadow of the leftward tunnel.

Jon sneered, before slinging his pack off his naked shoulders. He knew his course now - he would simply have to somehow come back for his pack and clothes once he knew who, or what, was on the other side. He doused the torch, sunk to his knees, and began to crawl.

* * *

The crawling tunnel did not end after several feet, Jon found with a growing sense of horror. Indeed, it continued on and on for what felt like eons. Only Dark Sister, clumsily held out in front of him like a dowsing rod as proof he was not crawling to a dead end, kept him from descending into a gibbering bundle of fear. 

_Old Gods and New, I did it again - I knew to watch for the foolhardy move and still fell for it. I could hear the water down the other path, but I took this suicidal path without a moment’s caution._

_The Raven has ruined me._

But onward he crawled, for there was no easy way to turn back other than to move in reverse. He would either be free, or he would die like a rat.

After what felt like weeks, but could logically only have been a few hours, the scabbard of Dark Sister swung out into the pitch black and hit nothing at all, not even the walls he was expecting. The Northern man felt his heart leap into his chest- he angled the tool upwards, and hit no ceiling. A ragged gasp escaped his throat, and he scrambled forward. The crawlhole had come to an end. He had made it out. 

Jon tried to push himself up, but fell instead to his knees, hands clasped together around the hilt. “Thank you… thank you…” he sobbed. “Never again… Any gods who are listening, Old or New... “ He stumbled, coughing. “Red God… R’hllor… don’t let me do that again. Whoever is listening… please, cure me of the Raven’s curse, so that I never do that again.”

 He laid there for a while, until his breathing steadied, and then pushed himself back to standing. The cave was a stygian black, as expected, but Jon’s eyes had adapted slightly, just enough to intuit the walls. Slowly, carefully, he made his way down the path, Dark Sister’s scabbard tapping a staccato pattern against the floor to guide his way. 

He could not have taken more than a few sharp turns in the cave before a brief flash of color broke the monotony, a scant flash of orange. Jon stopped, lifting the blade from the floor. _Did I imagine that? Or was that a torch?_ Slowly, and silently, he drew Dark Sister from it’s sheath, and settled it in his hand. Stepping lightly on the balls of his feet, he inched around to the corner of the wall, where a sharp 90-degree angled hid him from the other side. No light shone from the other side… but if he stilled his breathing, and strained his ears, he could hear a quiet inhale and exhale of breath.

“HAAAH!!” Jon shouted, whirling around the hidden edge, Dark Sister brandished expertly in front of him. A form in the dark flailed in surprise, before a narrow shape flicked up. The figure charged, shouting something nameless, and the narrow thing swung low at his belly. Jon expertly deflected it away, a sound of metal on stone ringing in the cave. Another swing at his knees, easily blocked. The figure stumbled, and with an easy flick, the Valyrian Steel was it it’s neck.

A second voice shouted out, and suddenly, the cave was illuminated to brightly Jon was blinded, stumbling back clutching his eyes. A gasp. 

“Flesh-man!” 

Even blinded, Jon’s brain stumbled. The words sounded like the Old Tongue, but… devolved. Almost Mag Nuk-like. If he had no experience with the Giant’s tongue, he might not have understood. 

“Flesh-man, not green-babe!” a second voice shouted - this one a female, to the first’s manly timbre. 

The ache in Jon’s eyes lowered, just enough for him to take his hands away from his face. Two figures stood in front of him, one a man in a strange amalgam of pale barkskin and stone sheets, the woman naked from the waist up with only a similar kilt of bark and stone protecting her nethers from view. If Jon hadn’t been a married man for well over a decade, his face might have flushed scarlet; instead, his eyes went to the man’s brandished weapon. 

It was a strange thing, a long thin plank of weirwood, clearly worked by mortal hands to taper to a grip and widen to a oblong top. All along the two edges were the same sharpened obsidian squares, melded into the wood close enough to each other that if it weren’t for the uneven knapping it would be difficult to tell the seams between them. On the flat sides of the weirwood, intricate patterns were carved, with the greatest appearing to be a gruesome, dagger-toothed face.

An unusual, primitive weapon… but likely the closest thing he had seen a Wildling forge to the deadliness of a Southern blade. With how sharp he knew an obsidian edge could be, it would likely pass straight through his leather armor and-

Jon felt his heart stop. He wasn’t wearing his leather armor. _He wasn’t wearing anything at all._

_I want to crawl into a hole and die, but I’ve already done the first and am about to do the second._

A flash of anger burst through Jon’s mortification. He didn’t want to die like this. Not here, not now. He would fight, and survive, and-

The cave-man let out a sharp hissing noise, and Jon realized he had lifted Dark Sister back to a fighting stance without him even noticing. He clenched his jaw; he tasted blood as the inside of his cheek tore open. _Remember - my first instincts cannot be trusted._

Slowly, haltingly, he lowered the naked blade back down to his hips, and then he slowly knelt down, to lay the weapon on the ground. “I…” he began, as his voice cracked; with an afterthought, he angled his leg to hide his nakedness. “I am not your enemy. I ask for hospitality.” 

The woman’s brow furrowed, and the man mimed out his words. “Hoh-Speh-Tah-Lah-Teh.”

“I…” Jon scowled, and switched from Forest, to Mag Nuk. “I am a guest. I ask bread and salt.” 

“Breddansat!” the woman exclaimed, eyes wide. “Yes-yes, we give-offer!”

“No!” shouted the man, lifting a hand to the woman. “Not yet.” he turned back to Jon, who he had not lowered his Weirwood and Obsidian sword from. “Attacked by green-babes? Dark-mad, you were?”

“I…” Jon hesitated. “Have lost for long day. Fall from high place to dark. Hunger. Cold.” 

“Fall?” the man stepped closer to him; Now, Jon could see his hair was bleached pale, his skin as white as untouched snow, and his eyes a pale pink, with the woman of a similar coloration. Albinos. “No place to fall-trip. Hurt-bump head no reason for bare skin.”

“No, no.” Replied Jon, gritting his teeth. The constraints of Mag Nuk were wearing at him. Trying to explain himself in almost entirely monosyllabic words was hard even without the strange rhythmic repetition of the Cave Dweller’s tongue. Perhaps imitation would work better. “Fall. From Tall-Sky to below-down. Push-Tripped by - by green-man. Three-Eyed Raven, king of green-babes.” 

The two Cave Dwellers went quiet - the topless woman holding the torch was staring at him with eyes as wide as dinner plates. The man, after a moment, lowered the weapon to his side and stepped forward with his free hand reaching to Jon’s face. The Northerner moved to place the scabbard of Dark Sister between them, but the hand snapped forward and gripped a lock of his dark, curly hair. “You sky-touched.” the Cave Dweller breathed, breaking apart the lock with a gentle roll of his thumb and forefinger. “Like Gendel and Gorne. Like Gan.”

“Bring-take to wise man.” said the woman, more insistently. “Breddansat. Gift for stone-guest, yes-yes.”

The man remained quiet for a moment, and then smiled widely. Jon noticed, with a perfunctory intellectual alarm, that the Cave Dweller’s teeth had all been filed to sharp daggers. “Follow-come. Stone-path no place for lone flesh-man. That when Green-babes or dark-mad come. Pale-Root safe, yes-yes.” 

They turned away and began to walk, and even as a knot began to twist inside Jon’s guts, he followed them anyways. _I suppose I’m going to learn now whether the Cave Dwellers were universally despised for a reason._

* * *

The path that the two Cave Dwellers seemed to twist and turn through endless tunnels, following signs only they could perceive, until at last the echoing sounds of other men began to be heard. The three were greeted by another Cave Dweller, yet again an albino with dagger-like teeth but closer to Jon’s age than the two adults that found him. The adults began to bark out words in their dialect of the Old Tongue that was indistinguishable to Jon - just when he thought he was beginning to grasp the tempo, the sentences blurred, and understanding fled him.

The man’s name was Mar, he thought, and the woman Vi. Within the first minutes of touching the settlement, the boy had run off, and returned with a kilt of bound wooden strands and scales of dull stone; Jon accepted the clothing, meager as it was, with both embarrassment and gratitude.

Through the cavern, he counted somewhere close to three dozen men, women and children. One was scraping in hard dirt, harvesting what looked like mushrooms into a stone bowl; another older man was knapping a hunk of obsidian to an edge. 

Eventually, Jon was brought to a wide, round cavern, with a dark hole filled with spikes of weirwood stacked as a small fire pit. He sat down, as directed, next to the unlit wood, and waited as they left with the only light. From his left, a loud thump of wood against stone rang out. 

“Greet-welcome, flesh-man.” said another voice, deeper and softer. Footsteps stepped softly around him, and a heavy sheaf of what felt like stone was placed on his knees. “Breddansat. Gorge-eat.” 

“I…” Jon licked his lips, inexplicably parched. “I have no light to see.”

“Did King-kin have light? No-No, sky-touched. Gendel had dark-dark, and tears. Now, we honor with dark-dark, and tears. Eat breddansat, sky-touched, and cry.” 

Slowly, Jon reached out his hand to the face of the stone, groping blindly against the flat surface until his fingers brushed against a moist, pliant surface. He gingerly lifted the morsel up, hesitated for only a moment, and popped it into his mouth. It was tough, and rubbery, and took far too long to gnash apart with his teeth. It was only after he had finally swallowed the last piece that he had a stray thought. _Where did they get the meat?_

The stone tablet lifted away, and a strike of stone on flint rang out. The weirwood kindling lit, from another man, revealing the one who sat in front of him. Immediately, Jon could see the difference - this man was old and wrinkled, but more importantly, his eyes were missing, staring at Jon at an off-center angle with empty sockets. Across the bridge of his nose, a single clean, pale scar traced from one temple to the other. 

“Your eyes…!” Jon said, without thinking.

The old albino chuckled, low and rumbly. “Where we go, not need eyes to _see_.” his lips peeled back in a smile - his sharpened dagger-like teeth were worn down to round, yellow nubs. 

Jon, suddenly unnerved, quickly looked around. The cavern had many signs of heavy use, but the details slid off as he focused on a pathway deeper in, guarded by two Cave Dwellers armed with what looked like wooden atlatls, with stone darts. They stared at him, with their albino-red eyes, and bared their teeth. 

“You move-come to Pale-Root at strange time, Sky-touched.” 

“Jon.”

The old man nodded, his nubby teeth revealing themselves again. “Jon. good name. I before-once had name. Give to the dark-dark. Give to Her. With this.” he traced his pointer finger across the scar on his nose. “Now, I wise man. Now, I See.”

A queer chill settled in Jon’s gut. The man was a woods-witch, or whatever passed for that among the Cave Dwellers. A younger man might have laughed off the unsubtle hints at higher connections with whatever goddess they were worshipping. Not now, though.

“Mar-Vi-both say-speak you fall-trip after a fight-attack.” the Wise Man continued, cocking his head. “Fight-attack the king of the green-babes, then fall-trip from the sky to the dark.”

“Yes-yes.” Jon nodded, stifling his unease. “I... “ his lips twisted, thinking carefully on his words. “I look-seek a return above. Cannot stay in the dark-dark. Must save clan from… from Others. Cold Gods. Dead-but-walking.”

The Wise Man leaned back, his empty eye sockets fully exposed in the firelight. “Dead-but-walking? Not true. Sky is not cursed so, no-no. You trick-lie.”

“It is true. And many more threats as well. I must save my clan. Only I can. Only I know. Three-Eyed Raven, King of green-babes only one threat.”

The Wise Man fell silent. “... Mar-Vi-both not say who King of the green-babes was.” he said, after a long silence. “Raven is known to me, yes-yes. Dark name.”

Jon remained silent. 

“Green-babes come to our stone-paths. Flee the Raven, they do, yes-yes. They bring new king of green-babes with. They attack-kill.” the Wise Man leans in, snarling softly. “They take Gan.” 

Jon could feel the leather on the hilt of Dark Sister creak under his tight grip. “Who is Gan?” 

“Blessed child. Sky-touched, but not from sky. Gift from Her.” the Wise Man answered. “Sign that she will show-mark the way Home. we have cried long time, made peace with King-Kin’s faults. When Gan born, we knew-knew we were forgiven. We were ready, yes-yes.”

The Wise Man struck the stone underneath him with his fist. “Then THEY attacked. Green-babes. They took-stole him. Took-stole new-babe Gan. Never find our way home. Now, we hunt-track. Find them, we will, and take-steal back Gan.”

Jon nodded. “I wish you luck. Where is the way out? Back to sky?”

“Sky?” the Shaman let out a wheezing chuckle. “You not hear what I say? Not way out. Not until She show-mark the way. You stay-live with us now, yes-yes.”

Jon’s eyes slowly narrowed. The blade of Dark Sister lifted from the ground-

He stopped himself, after barely moving an inch. _No. No. I am in control. Not the raven. Not his curse. I am in control, and he is not lying to me. I only think he is._

“There is way out.” Jon said, firmly. “Air go bad with no way out, all choke to death. Air come from Three-Eyed Raven cave one way - must go-leave other way.”

The Wise Man stared at him, unblinking, for a long moment that seemed to drag on. At last, he giggled, an old man’s laugh. “You have mind of wise man for young boy. Good-good. There must be way out, he says. We know. Secret. She hides the way Home.”

“Who is ‘She’?”

The Wise Man grunted. “Not Secret for you, sky-touched. Not for you. Only secret for Wise Men, and Gan.”

Jon felt an urge rise up in him - first, to leap up and strike the Wise Man until he spoke sense and in proper Common Tongue. The second, to bash his head against the stone walls until he passed out screaming, and hoped he woke up in Winterfell again like this was nothing but a bad dream.

Then, as Jon gripped the exposed flesh of his thigh with his free hand hard enough to dig his nails into the skin, a third idea came. “Where is Gan?”

“What?” The Wise Man blinked, reflexively.

“Where is Gan. Where Green-babes took him.” Jon replied. “What stone-path?”

A moment of silence, before the Wise Man giggled again, slapping the stone ground. “Yes-yes, Sky-touched! Gift from Sky, to bring-take Her gift back! Bring-take Gan back, and She shows secret. You very young Wise Man, yes-yes!” 

He leaned forward, as the embers of the camp fire dwindled. “Seek-find the pools. Search-look there - one man dead there. Tok, father of Gan. too few men-boys, no-no - we not chase. One dead, bad-bad. Many-much? Doom.” he grinned, an eerie thing. “Could be dark-mad, men who heard-saw Her name and run to death. Could be green-babes. Could be Gan. Seek-find the pools.”

Jon pushed himself to his feet, his weirwood-twine and stone-sheaf skirt clattering about him. “I will bring Gan home.”

* * *

Though they had given Jon a torch as he left their ‘village’, with strange undulating blessings, he left it unlit and looped it through his ‘belt’. Slowly, his eyes adjusted back to the stifling dark of the caverns, making his way through the twisted mass of tunnels that he had been directed down. 

The _tap-tap-tap_ of Dark Sister’s sheath against the ground rang out as a guide-stick, echoing against the silence of lifeless stone. It was quiet, Jon thought to himself, down in the dark where not even the worms lived. Not even the heights of the Wall, or the deepest nights of the Long Night, were ever so silent, or as oppressive in their silence.

_Dark-mad, the Wise Man said… I can see a man going insane, trapped down here._

A nondescript sound stopped Jon in his tracks. It was far away, with how muddled it was, but he could hear it through the nothingness just the same. Slowly, he drew the Valyrian shortsword form it’s sheath and padded forward on silent bare feet. The tunnel narrowed, and widened, and narrowed again so tightly he had to slide sideways through it, but the sound continued - a repetitive drop of water against a larger body, he could tell now. 

He rounded the corner, and his blown-wide grey eyes saw the rough outline of a number of water pools, of various sizes. There was no fresh source of water nearby, not like the waterfall from the underground river with the Three-Eyed Raven; instead, they seemed to have formed from groundwater from the roof, more porous than first assumed. 

Jon licked his lips. The Pools, he knew, meant he was close to where they had last lost the trail for Gan, but seeing the open water reminded him of a growing thirst in him. He crouched down, laid Dark Sister by his side to cup his hands full of water, and brought it to his lips-

The handprint was glowing, in the all-encompassing dark, and in the singular light, a pair of blood-red eyes reflected like a cat’s. Jon whirled-

“MIIIIIINE!!” an inhumanly loud voice screeched, and a body barreled into his side. “MINE-MINE! ONLY MINE! SHE-SHE GAAAAAAVE!” 

Razor-sharp talons tore at Jon’s arm, which had whipped up instinctually at the attack to block the tackle. Jon grunted in pain, before hooking his free arm out into a punch; the assailant grabbed it by the wrist and slammed it down, it’s strength belying it’s reed-thin frame. “YES-YES! MINE!” it screeched, and it’s yellowed teeth snapped out at the offending arm. 

Jon growled, wordlessly, reaching for an instant at the fallen weapon, but the thing held him in place. “MINE-MINE!” it howled, and tried to bite his face, instead. The two struggled against each other, neither able to progress against the other - 

Jon let out a curse, pulled the thing forward, and slammed his forehead into the attacker’s nose. It screeched, and recoiled in pain, loosening it’s grip on his right arm just enough for Jon to reach out, grab Dark Sister, and slam it’s jagged flame-wave hilt into the creature’s eye. 

“AAAAAAAAAAGH!” Now the thing screamed in pain, losing it’s grip entirely as it’s arms went to the gouged eye. It only took Jon a second more to readjust the angle of his grip, and pierce through its throat all the way to the crossguard. The screamer choked, spat out a gout of black blood onto Jon, and fell limp.

Breathing heavily from the exertion, Jon rolled the corpse off of his chest, pulling himself unsteadily to his feet. With a slight struggle with the flint, the unlit torch hanging from his belt was lit, and his attacker was made clear.

It was one of the Cave Dwellers, but in a more degenerate form than any he had seen yet. It’s single intact eye was entirely blood-red and without sclera, with heavy scarification as if it had attempted to gouge them both out with it’s own terrifying elongated and sharpened fingernails. It’s limbs and chest were shrunken and emaciated from hunger, it’s biceps nearly smaller than Jon’s pointer and middle fingers pressed together, though a grotesque potbelly bulged outwards as if recently gorged on something as big as itself. 

 _Dark-mad,_ a quiet voice in Jon whispered. _This is what they mean by Dark-mad. Did this thing come from Pale-Root… or did it come from somewhere else?_

A shaking hand traced over his body, and with a relief Jon found that aside from the lightly bleeding cuts on his arm, he was unscathed. If he hadn’t had Dark Sister within reach, or if the light of the Handprint had not revealed his ambusher, perhaps it would have turned out differently.

_You tried to have me killed once more, Raven. But this time, your own ploy worked against you._

Cautiously, Jon reached down and closed the single eye. The death rictus of it’s face was unnerving enough without it staring; the jagged, shark-like teeth were even more prominent, as if the Dark-Mad’s jaw was growing to outsized proportions to it’s skull. After another moment of thought, he quickly readjusted the lay of the corpse, leaning against the wall instead of in danger of falling into the pools to foul the water.

A queer chill took him, then. A wordless prayer to all the gods, Old, New and Other, came to his lips - both for the dead man, and himself. _Don’t let me die down here like he did. Let me see the sun once more. I will pay the price you see fit._

_Just let me see the sun again._

* * *

Jon was not precisely sure when it was that he began to get the inkling that he was getting close. Something in his muddled instincts, and not his higher mind, was perhaps catching signs in the flickering torchlight. It wasn’t until he saw the half-harvested mushrooms, though, that he knew without a doubt that something lived nearby.

 _They’re close,_ Jon thought, his hand absently itching at a persistent irritant in his scalp. With his other hand, he slowly set the torch down on the ground - he didn’t really have an effective way of dousing it, so he would simply have to come back for it. 

With Dark Sister’s steel bared, he stepped slower, more quietly. The jangle of the thin stone slabs that pretended to be ‘clothing’ went away, and the only sound Jon heard from then on was the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, and his own stifled breath. 

The oppressive dark served another, useful purpose as well, as he crept along. After an indiscernible amount of time, the Handprint throbbed a sickly blue-green light, and Jon stopped dead, frozen in his tracks. _The curse is trying to hide something from me._ His higher thinking shut down, his attention focused instead on straining his senses to the brink-

A soft, nearly invisible puff of wind brushed along the hairs of his arm.

Slowly, Jon raised his hand, trailing it through the air, to catch the wind by its tail. His fingers twirled, stroking outwards with calm, deliberate movements, following it back to the source - a seam in the stone wall, nearly invisible even with Jon staring right at it. 

Jon smiled viciously, and pulled at the seam with all his strength. The wall shifted, with a shower of finely-powdered gravel, and slid on a hidden groove. “Even in a place as devolved as this, there are secrets.” he muttered, before creeping forward once more. 

It did not take long before the echoes of life began to reach him. Jon quickly pressed his back against a sheer stone wall, and silently exhaled a shaky breath. He raised the blade of Dark Sister into the air -

The sound of conversation ended.

Jon didn’t even hesitate; he knew he had been discovered. With a loud battle cry, he whirled around the edge of the wall and charged into the cavern. Dark Sister snapped forward with a keening note, and was met with a ringing clash of steel against obsidian, and yellow cat-slit eyes staring at him from the darkness. 

Here, Jon could trust his instincts. Here, his body and soul would not try to betray him. 

The Valyrian shortsword sang as it was swung, clashing against two, three, four different opposing weapons seeking his life in that sunless place. They screamed something at him in their primordial tongue, and a spear slipped past his guard to slash at his side, opening a thin gouge along his obliques. 

Jon hissed in pain, but attempted to clamp his arm around the spear as before; this one seemed wise to the trick, though, and dropped it downwards instead of trying to retract it. He was forced back, and back, and back again, until the heel of his foot stamped against the halfway-rolled secret wall.

A flash of martial inspiration took him, and with a furious roar, he turned his back on the Children, and instead leaped at the stone wall, before kicking off of it upwards and outwards with all of his strength. He soared over the pointed spears, landing clumsily as his ankle rolled with the impact - but the backs of his assailants were exposed, and with yet another furious shout swung the legendary blade in a wide arc. Four heads dropped to the ground, and four bodies slumped lifelessly after them.

He stood there, panting for a moment as the burning adrenaline numbed the spear wound and the likely-sprained ankle. _That was unbelievable._ He thought to himself, as that singularly annoying itch in his scalp remained as strong as ever. A momentary roll of his jaw, and he started running as fast as his ankle would let him. _You’re not far now, Gan._

The Handprint throbbed, just as he rounded the corner; his eyes widened. _What!? What could I possibly be missi-_

His world went white with pain as something as thick around as a mammoth’s trunk slammed into his back. Jon went sprawling face-first, slamming his forehead against another stone wall. The sound of wordless whimpering and crying was only vaguely audible through the ringing in his ears. 

Face-down on the ground, he could not resist a thick, rough rope-like appendage wrapping around his wrists and binding them together behind him, yanking him upwards with a scream of protest from his shoulders. Dazed, Jon could only see what almost looked like a pale figure, standing in a singular ray of pale sunlight. The itch in his scalp was undeniable, and the handprint pulsed rhythmically. 

A soft voice, like snow over a mountaintop, spoke to him. Another, higher-pitched voice merely sobbed. The figure stepped forward out of the sunbeam, and as Jon’s vision cleared, he could see it for what it was - a Child of the Forest, but with skin as pale as a cloud, and eyes of ruby red. It was small, even compared to the rest of its kin, and a streak of blood was flowing freely from its dainty nose. 

It spoke again, in that primordial tongue that sounded more like nature than speech, and Jon flung angry jumbled explicatives at it in return. It gestured with its four-fingered hand, and his arms were yanked further back - now, jon could see it was not a rope that was holding him, but a weirwood root, prehensile as a snake. 

 _But that’s -_ the thought stilled, as he suddenly became acutely aware of the itched in his scalp once more. _A Greenseer. A Child Greenseer. That is what it was hiding from me - but even then, I would not have known it was capable of this._

“Why do you refuse to acknowledge me, Lord of Unbound Flame?” asked the Red-Eyed Child, this time in the Forest Tongue. “Though I am unrooted, you think me so little I cannot dispel your mortal form?”

“Didn’t understand… a fucking word… you said.”

“I see your fire, Lord of Unbound Flame. You know the True Tongue as I do.” the Red-Eyed Child replied, before swaying slightly on its feet. A body raced out from the shadow and latched onto the thing’s side. Jon’s eyes widened as they refocused, and a pale, dark-haired and grey-eyed boy who could not have been five years old looped the Red-Eyed Child’s arm around his neck.

“Bless you, gentle one.” the Red-Eyed Child whispered, only barely loud enough to hear it. 

“You…” said Jon, half a moan from pain. “You’re Gan. but… they said you were a newborn…”

“... You come from them?” the Red-Eyed Child said. Its eyes narrowed, and it crooked a finger; the root binding his arms twisted his wrists further, and pain shot through his arms until Dark Sister clattered to the ground. “How is it you cannot see, for one as divine as you? You who burn with -”

Gan said something, in a mumbled voice. The Red-Eyed Child stopped; it’s cat-like pupils blew wide. “... No. It cannot be…” it unlooped its arm from Gan’s neck, and with slow staggering steps, as if it was unused to walking upright, toddled to Jon. It brushed its four-fingered hand across his forehead; Jon immediately snapped his teeth out, barely missing as it was retracted. “... Who are you?” the Child said, with a hint of fear and awe.

“I’m the man who’s decided the Raven’s not the only Greenseer who needs to die.” Jon snarled, wriggling against his tight bonds.

The Red-Eyed Child stilled. “... The Raven is dead?” it asked. 

“And you’re next, unless you return that boy.” 

The Red-Eyed Child stared at jon with wide, unblinking eyes. “... Then the tormentor of my people is dead.” it replied, after a time. “Along with our future. The last notes of our song will fade away, down here among the shadows.” 

It stared at Jon once more. “... Unless. That mark.” it raised a black-taloned finger, pointing at the crook of his neck, where the Handprint resided. “Who gave that to you?” 

“The Raven did.” Jon sneered. “Before he died.”

The Red-Eyed Child’s eyes widened even further. “But that is not…” it stopped. The thing’s arm dropped limply back down, and it closed its eyes. “... I see.” it whispered. “I do not understand, but I see.” 

It’s fingers curled into a weak fist. “Can it be that it does not matter what happens now? How liberating, to know that the song of the earth will continue to be sung after all, no matter my fate today.” slowly, gingerly, it lowered itself to its knees. 

“How many times have you been reborn, oh Prince Who Was Promised?”

The words struck with all the force of a scorpion bolt to the gut; Jon forgot how to breathe.

The Red-Eyed Child smiled, a happy thing, even as bloody tears began to form in its eyes. “You know what I speak of, then; I was right after all. The turning of the eons has finally come.”

“H-How…”

“The magic upon your neck distorting your soul came from the dying hatred of a powerful Greenseer, to distort your mind, remove all self-preservation and drive you forward with furious abandon, to a quick and easily avoided death. All manner of unforced errors and reckless energy compels you. And that curse was laid on a day that has not yet come to pass.” the Red-Eyed Child said. “It can only be lain by one betrayed by their own blood. The Raven had taken a man of the Dragon’s Blood, the day I was born…”

Jon felt an ugly scowl crossed his face, he said nothing, but bit his tongue until pain came, and a slight taste of blood filled his mouth. 

“You did not come here to end me; your true cause is higher than that.” said the Red-Eyed Child. “But you must know this, and know it well. When they succeed in their dark workings, and break open the Labyrinth, you must not fear for any left behind. We are already doomed; only the ruination of the cornerstone matters. You must rush in the place they have foolishly unlocked, and do not stop for anything until you find the first way out. Then, you will be free.”

“What in the seven hells are you talking-”

The Red-Eyed Child’s hand snapped out and grabbed Jon by the throat, and his world went white with pain. The Handprint **SCREAMED** , and an echoing, wordless howl of fury in Brynden Rivers’ voice echoed in the cavern. 

Then the Greenseer pulled its hand away, and Jon went limp in the grasp of the knotted tree root. A moment after, even that fell away as the root unbound his hands, and he flopped belly-first to the stone. A low wheezing groan of pain escaped him as he weakly adjusted his head to still stare upwards. 

The Red-Eyed Child was lying on its backside where it had fallen, blood streaming from all facial orifices, and a glowing five-fingered handprints pulsed with a sickly blue-green light. “How…?” The Red-Eyed Child gasped. “How did you make it here, with such power ruining you…?”

“NO!” a voice shouted. Gan ran as fast as his small stubby legs could carry him to the Child’s side. “No, no! This is bad! You said bleeding is bad! You need to sleep now!” 

“Oh… oh, little son of Man…” the Red-Eyed Child whimpered, wrapping an arm around the boy’s waist and pulling him into an embrace. “Thank you, but it no longer matters. What matters now, is that you be brave. We have protected you for many years, and now it is time for you to protect him. Do you understand?”

“I don’t understand!” Gan protested, childish tears welling in his eyes. “You need to stop bleeding! Where are the others? I want the others!” 

“Then I will help you be brave, Gan.” Said the Red-Eyed Child. “I can hear your people coming, so you must be brave. It will be alright.” the creature pushed itself shakily to its feet, and looked to Jon, whose eyes were already clouding from pain. “I have absolved your sin, oh Prince, and taken it from you. No more will the Mark of the Kinslayer haunt you.

“... What…?”

“And in return, I ask only one thing.” the Red-Eyed Child smiled, sadly. “When you are reborn once more, come and save us from this place. Give me a chance to let my people live, and your debt to me will be paid.” 

“... Why…? I don’t understand…”

“Because I do not believe you are an evil Man, oh Prince. One day, I think, you will save us all.” 

A wordless shout of battle echoed out from the entrance to the cave, and a stone dart as thick around as the Red-Eyed Child’s arm punctured it’s chest. The Greenseer’s body was blown backwards, rolling to a halt as Gan began to scream. The last Jon saw before unconsciousness took him was the albino-pale legs of a man in a stone-sheaf skirt.

* * *

Jon Snow awoke with a panicked gasp, chest heaving as wordless chanting and shrieks echoed around him. A low drum was thumping, setting the stone about him to shivering, and Jon could neither move his arms from behind his back nor feel the weight of Dark Sister on his person. 

“It is done-done!” a familiar voice shouted. Jon attempted to roll onto his back, but a foot slammed into his back, keeping him belly-down and able to only turn his head, to see the feet of his captors. “Gan has been stolen-taken back!” the Wise Man exclaimed, and a new cacophany of noise from the assembled tribe deafened him.

 _… how did I not see this coming._ Jon thought, a sudden chill clarity taking him. A clarity he hadn’t felt in weeks. _Everybody hated the Cave Dwellers not just for their worship of dark gods, and their evil acts in the shadows, but for their deceitful  and perfidious natures - they will not keep their word to any are not of their tribe unless forced. But I forgot that. I forgot ALL of that. I was MADE to forget all of that._

The Wise Man chanted something else In that chattering tongue, too quickly to understand, but Jon instead wriggled against his bonds and the foot on his back to give himself a better view than a sea of feet. There were at least two-score people gathered in the cavern, all the Cave Dweller coloring, and all facing towards the direction the Wise Man spoke. 

Jon could see him, now, and the sight chilled his blood. The blind man stood next to an altar, jet-black and weeping with an oily substance over incomprehensible, eldritch carved symbols. The stone wall above it had shattered apart from a thicket of weirwood roots, twining about each other as it grew until it reached the blackstone altar, wrapping over and about it as if to strangle it. Rust-brown stains covered the altar, in strange patterns, that the Northerner could tell in a moment was old blood.

Gan was there, laid upon the groove of the altar, hands bound and still. _Too still, for how panicked he was when we were captured_ , Jon thought. 

“The King-Kin stuck-trapped us here! Tried to bring us home, failed!” The Wise Man shouted, eyeless sockets flickering black and terrible. “Did not know that home was far! But SHE showed us home! She of chasms and stone-paths, and the Down! She showed-taught, that to go UP, we take the DOWN!”

The gathering shouted their approval.

“Madmen…” Jon whispered, a growing horror in his voice. 

“We take the DOWN, to find-see our true-real home. Find our clan, of ancient K’dath, where no man is king!”

The Wise Man lifted a finely-wrought obsidian knife, its edge glistening with a heretic sheen in the torchlight. Jon knew, then, what they had wanted Gan for, and wrestled fiercely against his bonds. “NO! YOU DARE!?”

“Quiet!” 

A foot kicked him in the back of the head, setting his world ringing. 

“Now we have-own the key! Let his sky-touched blood lead us to the down, and open the way!” 

“Do not look away, oh Prince.”

Jon’s eyes widened for just a moment at the Forest tongue, before he arched his body to see the altar once more. Gan had turned his head to stare at Jon, and the small boy was crying bloody tears, and had lost all color but ruby red.

“Locate your blade, and be ready to flee.” Red-Eyed Gan continued, staring at him without pupils. “Do not be afraid of what they unleash, but plunge into the Labyrinth once this altar is desecrated, and find the first way out. You will know it, for none but the race of men can pass out. And remember what you see here. Remember what you fight.”

“NO!” Jon roared, slamming his chest into the ground hard enough to bounce him to his knees, before another foot lashed out to kick him to the ground. “NO! GAN!”

“I will be brave for the boy, oh Prince. I will be his strength, now.” said Red-Eyed Gan. “Only you can escape this doom.”

“PRAISE SHE OF THE DARK-LIT PATH! LET THE BELLS SCREAM-SCREAM!”

Red-Eyed Gan smiled, a weak and sad thing. “Don’t forget us when you wake.”

The Wise Man turned, and though he was blind brought the obsidian knife down in a single expert move, slashing the boy’s neck open in a spray of red.

Jon roared in fury, thrashing about against his bonds as even more hands were brought to hold him down. The entire event felt like a nightmare, a terrible confusing fever dream where nothing made sense and was meant only to torment. All he knew was that he wanted every Cave Dweller in this room dead where they stood for the deceit. 

The Wise Man reverently laid the bloody knife to the side of the altar, and dipped his fingers into the blood of Gan, pooling in grooves in the altar to reveal eldritch patterns. He lifted the coated fingers high, and the chanting reached a fever pitch. “LET HER REVEAL THE SIGN!” he screamed. “LET HER REVEAL THE PATTERN!” 

The room fell silent; an eerie stillness filled the air, as nobody except Jon, thrashing against his captors, seemed to even breathe. The Wise Man lowered his fingers slowly, reverently. He murmured something too quietly to hear, and as he dabbed the bloody finger to his chest, the crowd began to stamp their feet as one. 

Jon stilled, at the sound. The Wise Man dragged his fingers with a strange, jerky energy, as if he himself was not certain of his actions. When the blood began to run dry, he lifted one hand away only for the other to pick up not a moment later, and redabbed itself in Gan’s blood. 

So it continued, again and again, a frenetic cycle of arms and fingers, driven by the sound of flesh against stone. The pace began to increase, and as the tempo sped up, so did the painting. Jon could only stare, in horrified fascination, as a symbol began to emerge. He did not know the first portion, a tangle of curved lines and harsh angles daubed across withered pectorals, but the sign on the belly reminded him of nothing so much as a single closed eye.

The Wise Man threw his arms wide, and let out a primal scream, and the congregation matched it. The howl echoed across the stone, for a good minute, before it trailed off. The Wise Man stood there, chest heaving and covered in blood, with nothing but silence to meet him.

“Not enough.”

A woman gasped.

“Not enough!” the Wise Man moaned. “Is not enough, Stone-Path stay shut. Touch of sky too weak, touch of light. Touch of the Sun. The Sun! THE SUN! THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN!”

The madman’s raving ended as quickly as they started, staring with empty sockets at Jon, from across the room. “We have more.” he declared, voice a threatening monotone. “More blood. Blood that has touched-tasted the sun. better blood.”

Jon immediately began kicking and thrashing against all surrounding bodies, but a horde of hands piled onto him, and he could feel himself lift off the ground. “BASTARDS!” He shouted. “YOU GAVE ME BREAD AND SALT! OATHBREAKERS! I’LL KILL ALL OF YOU!” 

His back slammed into a shallow pool of blood over hard stone, as the small corpse of Gan was unceremoniously tossed aside like leftover garbage. Even without the blood, the stone was oily and foul to his touch, and an unceasing fury built in his bones. The torches flared. The Wise Man picked up the obsidian knife once more.

“PRAISE SHE OF THE DARK-LIT PATH! LET THE BELLS SCREAM-SCREAM!” 

The Wise Man swung the blade down, and Jon felt it touch his neck-

 **_FIRE_**.

  
  
  
  
  
  


When Jon was next aware of himself, his sight was wreathed in flames, and screaming echoed through the stony underground. With slow movements he pushed himself upright, and part of him noticed in a detached way that the pool of blood he had been lying in was burning like oil.

He had not noticed until he saw it. All he had felt was a warm, soothing sensation. His hand went to gingerly touch his throat. The knife had pierced his skin by some small degree, and where blood flowed from within him, streaks of fire ignited. _My blood is burning._

The gathering had broken, those without arms or weapons running about in mindless panic. Those who had weapons, such as the obsidian-edged clubs or dart launchers, were standing in wavering formation against him - trained to attack, but too afraid to be the first to move. The Wise Man, however…

The Wise Man was burning. Flailing about, coated in flames. His skin bubbled and cooked as whatever magic had come from Jon’s blood wreaked its havoc, but the symbols painted in Gan’s blood remained untouched - a recessed engraving in flesh and fire.

 _The Greenseer said to locate Dark Sister before I ran._ A quiet voice whispered. A quick scan found it - a young albino off to the flanks, barely old enough to be called a man, holding it more poorly in stance than even the freshest recruit to the Night’s Watch. 

“WHYYYYYYYYYYY!?” screamed the Wise Man. “WHYYYY, PNOTH!? WHYYYYYYYYYY!?” 

The caves rumbled. Then shook. Behind Jon, a great cacophony shrieked of stone clashing against stone. An unearthly scream echoed -

_Don’t look back. We are already doomed._

Jon lunged into the range of the one holding his sword. The boy reacted poorly, swinging upwards with the hilt instead of the blade. With skill born of practice, Jon punched downward into the boy’s elbows, then grabbed over the boy’s hands twisted them about. He didn’t even have time to scream before Dark Sister was shoved halfway to the hilt through his own throat, dying with a wet gurgle. Jon ripped the blade out, and noted with passing irritation that the scabbard was nowhere to be found-

Something tackled him from behind, throwing him to the ground. An inhuman voice bellowed in his ear, before pain erupted across his back as something began to tear. The howl turned to a scream with the sound of erupting flames, and the pressure left him; the attack was over in less than five seconds.

Gasping for breath, Jon pushed himself to his feet with a stumble. The world felt like a waking nightmare, a fever dream of terrifying atrocity.

The steady torchlight was gone, replaced with wild random shadows cast by out of control fires, and through the thrashing light a scene of horror revealed itself. The weirwood roots tangling about the Altar burned, and from the walls, all the streaks of white breaking apart the monotonous stone smouldered. The Altar itself, remarkably, crumbled before his eyes.

But the Altar was not the source of the horror - the gaping hole next to it was. An entire wall had simply disappeared, and from the yawning blackness that was not there before poured a multitude of terrible and twisted forms. Hunched over on human legs, skeleton-thin but for the wrinkled paunch, and a malformed canid-like cast to their expressions, the _things_ were attacking, tearing, ripping flesh from the screaming Cave Dwellers with terrible ferocity. 

The Wise Man was covered by three, as blood poured from his wounds, screaming the loudest of them all as he was devoured alive. The symbol on his belly had changed; now, the eye was open, with a pupil of thirteen-pointed stars, and it was _moving_ , staring directly at Jon.

_Do not look away._

Something inside him broke.

* * *

The world shuddered, and a dull pain spread through his chest. 

_Pain. I am in pain._

_… I fell. I don’t know where, or how, but I fell._

A phantom sensation brushed across the side of his face - _not a phantom. My fingers -_ his fingers reached underneath him and pushed himself upwards. The ground underneath him was smooth, and regimented, but he couldn’t see. 

_I can’t see. I can’t see the ground, or my fingers. Why can’t I see?_

_Because it is dark. It is so dark I cannot see. I don’t know where I am, and I cannot see._

Light flickered down his neck, a droplet of liquid fire dripping to the ground, revealing smooth, uniform grey stone. His free hand - his other hand was gripping a sword, he realized - went to his neck, and came away covered in flames that did not burn.

_I am fire. I am light. I am truth. I am… I am…_

_Who am I?_

A shard of panic pierced his heart. His chest felt too tight. _I don’t know who I am. I don’t know my name. Who am I? I need to know who I am. I… I am…_

“I am…” he spoke aloud, his voice hoarse, and the taste of blood filled his mouth. He realized he had been screaming - screaming so much he had destroyed his voice. He had been screaming- 

_“-ESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTH-”_

“No.” He stated, raspy. “No. I am not.”

An inhuman shriek echoed from the dark. He looked up.

_Find the first way out._

He lifted his glowing hand, and brought his hand to the sword. The sword was covered, from flame-coated pommel to deadly tip, in sticky red blood. His palm gently caressed the flat, and with a rush of air the edge ignited. 

The burning sword revealed the boundaries of his surroundings - plain grey stone merging with seamless right angles to walls that soared up, up, up, higher than the tallest towers of the Red Keep with no hint of ceiling. Then he noticed his own body, covered in splattered red from head to toe without a stitch of clothing. The ground underneath him was a dried pool of blood; there was no sign of how he had arrived, even as his feet were leaving burning footprints.

He raised the sword of flames, his stumbling steps into the dark growing stronger and more steady. The stone about him was identical no matter where he looked, or how far he travelled; if his burning footprints did not mark the way he had moved, he might have thought he was not moving at all. He noted absently that the smoke rose from all sources not in long thin wisps, but in delicate bubbles, cloudy and vague.

_Why am I walking?_

_Because I must find the first way out._

_But why must I find the way out? Why not simply lay down, and quietly die?_

_Because I must…_

_I must what?_

_I must remember… why it is I fight._

_And why is it that I fight?_

_I don’t remember. It was stolen by the fire._

He stepped forward, and felt his toes touch emptiness. With a start, he looked down and saw a yawning abyss. With a slow movement, he touched a finger to his slit throat, and let a flaming drop of blood fall from his finger. The light plunged down, and down, and down, until it was swallowed by the dark. 

 _This is not normal,_ he realized with a groggy clarity. _Wherever I came from before, this is not normal there. I do not belong here._

_That is why I must find the first way out. I do not belong here, and someone depends on me._

_Who?_

_I don’t remember. The fire took that from me._

From the dark, behind him, a roar with the fury and timbre of hunting horns reverberated across the walls. The fire he left behind with his steps began to die, swallowed by a thing with eyes too wide, and a mouth too big. 

He stared at the dying light with wide unblinking eyes, slowly backing against the edge of the abyss. 

_Run._

_How? There is nowhere left to go._

_Who told you that?_

_I did._

_But I know nothing._

_That’s right. You know nothing. This is not a place to dwell in, but to pass through. Let the Labyrinth lead you out._

He turned around, and saw the edge of the abyss. A burning flower hung suspended in the air, spinning gently. The petals curled inward with flames burning green and blue and black, and across the chasm came the smell of the sea.

_That’s right. I know the way out._

_The fire gave that to me._

He stepped out into the abyss, and touched down on empty air as gently as stone; his steps burned ever brighter as he continued across the empty chasm without fear or frenzy. The thing chasing him charged, and lunged, but he did not turn back.

The thing screamed, and fell down, down, down, its fury swallowed by the dark. The dark changed, then - underneath his feet, a single, burning Eye the color of dead stars opened, and gazed upwards with hate.

He did not look down. Did not acknowledge the Eye. his feet stepped lightly onto the solid stone once more, and reached out. He gently took the rose in his fingers-

* * *

“What the FUCK!?”

He was not surrounded by the dark and the stone, anymore. Now, he was on a beach covered by snow and ice, and the ruins of wooden buildings. 

He was not alone, either. A dozen men stood about him - dressed in dark leathers and bright furs, with long dyed beards trailing down to their chests. One of them had shouted in alarm, and whipped a crossbow to point at his face - a heartbeat later, a half-dozen more weapons joined it. 

“What is this nonsense?” an authoritative voice shouted. “Do not linger about like some Lysene whore! Move! The fleshmarkets will only wait so long for us to capture more product!” He looked up to the source of the shouting voice to see a tall, many-sailed carrack only some feet from the shore, a wooden gangplank dropped to the ground. A man crested the railing of the ship, flamboyant thickly-padded robes accented by a long forked beard dyed purple and green.

The man stopped, clearly taken aback. “What in the gods’ name…?”

“He appeared not even a second ago, captain!” one of them shouted. “Hasn’t said a word, yet. We weren’t the ones who stripped him naked!” 

“Stop looking at his cock, idiot!” The captain shouted back. “Look at that sword! See the pattern!”

A hushed silence fell.

“I don’t know what brand of northern madman you style yourself, sunsetlander,” said the captain, eyes glinting, “but that Valyrian steel in your fist is worth more than a thousand of your lives. I will be taking it for myself, boy - the only question is whether you’re alive or dead when I rip from you. Your choice.”

He blinked slowly, looking down at himself. An involuntary shudder passed through him; already, the cold was worming its way through him. 

His fingers loosened, and the blade in his hand fell to the snow. A man behind him kicked his calves, and he fell to his knees as he was swarmed. Beyond the throng, the captain shouted. “Forget the rest of the hold! I have a greater prize now! Get that star worshipper out here to plot a course home, and break camp! We sail for Tyrosh with the tide! And throw that sunset madman in there with the rest of the slaves!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there. Kept you waiting, huh?
> 
> I told y’all this was the arc where things start getting weird. Key word: START.
> 
> (For those of you who like it more mundane: Don't worry. There's plenty of low fantasy still in the cards, and after this chapter it'll chill out for a while. I want to make sure everybody is satisfied with the direction here.)
> 
> For those of you who weren’t keeping tabs, I didn’t die. Job-hunting is a full-time job, ya know. (Also, this chapter went a lot longer than I expected it to. Whoops.) 
> 
> I recently joined an accelerated cert program, since I figured the reason I wasn’t getting hired was because I kept getting thrown in the slush pile without certs. Now that I’m in that program, ironically, I have more time to do fun things like this - I think I slammed out around 10 pages just this weekend. Hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for being patient.
> 
> We are THIS close to the start of the (REDACTED) Saga. I am very excited. Lend me your energy to write faster, friends - the hype sustains me. ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
> 
> (Side tangent - people who like my work enough to bookmark always make me happy, but the people who like it enough to bookmark and also leave their own tags and little comments about how they like it make me warm and fuzzy. Like, shoutout to Toddy_76. I don't even know this man, but every time I feel like quitting or going a less complex route for plot, I think 'hell no, I gotta keep being quality so I can justify that guy's hype! If I start slipping then I make his bookmark look like a lie and then I embarrass him, and Toddy_76 is a gud boi!' and going again. lmao. I have the weirdest hangups sometimes.)
> 
> I included several references in this chapter. Anybody who can catch some gets a cookie.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like what you read, then leave a kudos, a bookmark, subscribe or whatever you like, and share it with others. Nothing motivates a man like me to write more quite like watching the numbers go up. And I highly encourage you to leave a comment below - I'm usually quite chatty, so I'll likely respond to whatever you want to talk about.
> 
> Thanks for reading my story.
> 
> The Animaniac Dude


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